RED HEADED BUNTING-FLAMBOROUGH HEAD-EAST YORKS-27TH OCTOBER 2023

Flamborough Head in East Yorkshire sparked the biggest twitch of the week and one of the largest of the autumn so far when a news of a potential Red headed bunting came to light on 21st. It was actually first seen and photographed on 19th; however, the discovery of a Siberian stonechat in the very same spot just minutes later saw the bunting promptly forgotten about!

I was well late to the party to see this bird due to work commitments and thankfully it stuck around.I drove over to Flamborough with Tony disley from Lancashire and arrived on site just after sun rise.

Flamborough head

It didn't take long to walk to the birds favoured area and it was on show when we arrived perched up on a hawthorn bush.

Red Headed bunting

Away from adult males, this species is incredibly tricky to separate from Black headed bunting, meaning the identification took time to resolve completely. The most important features clinching the identification are a grey mantle with broad, arrow-shaped black streaks and prominent, triangular head streaking that continues down the nape and into the mantle streaking (neither of these is apparently shown by Black-headed Bunting).

The species was common in captivity until the export ban in 1982 and this corresponded with a large number of escaped birds (with small flocks occasionally even appearing at sites such as Portland, Dorset). As a result, the taxon currently finds itself languishing in Category D of the British list, although a review was recently prompted by the British Ornithologists' Union Records Committee (BOURC) to determine whether the species should be added to Category A. The frequency of occurrences has rapidly decreased since the ban and there are only four additional records since the turn of the century – at Baldhoun, Isle of Man, on 16-17 June 2001, Cattawade, Essex, on 21 May 2002, Monreith, Dumfries and Galloway, on 8-9 June 2004, and Out Skerries, Shetland, from 2-8 October 2010.

Other birds of note on site were two Common cranes over and a Short eared owl.

Common Crane

Short eared owl

DNA has apparently been collected from the bird and hopefully it will be confirmed as a Red-headed Bunting, a first-winter male,we all wait in anticipation.