The Safari was once again hearing the wind in the tree tops outside the pre-dawn window...not a good sign. It really did feel like the weather gods were well and truly against us - Again! To be fair to those gods the wind had dropped a little bit but was still too strong from the 'wrong' direction.
Where to first this morning? Well in previous years we've always started the day at the seawatching hide but so far this trip hadn't so a conscious decision was made to do just that. Despite the slacking wind there wasn't much tio get the juices flowing. The now regular Grey Seal was a bit closer but very active, every time we tried for a pic he got camera shy and dived.
At least the regular Red Throated Diver was closer, but still not close enough. Squint hard and you might just be able to make out a hint of red on its throat.
More of its kin kept moving southwards as did Common and Sandwich Terns, far more of the former than the latter. Far more Guillemots than Razorbills also moved southwards but Gannets, all juveniles on this watch, went the 'wrong' way.
Ducks were represented by small numbers of incoming Teal and Wigeon and distant small flocks of Common Scoters mooching around well out towards the turbines. It was all much of a muchness until a Merlin sped past the hide window clutching what looked like half a prey item. And then the real action started "Dolphins!" was the cry. Coming up from the south in the near to middle distance was a scattered pod of about a dozen Bottlenose Dolphins - nice one!!!
As you can see they were motoring through on a mission to somewhere. But there were a few spectacular breaches that we caught on camera.
It's always impressive to see them 'perform' like this but please DON'T EVER EVER go to a captive dolphin show, or swim with captive dolphins in a pool - if you have, or are thinking about it, watch the film The Cove which documents how they get to those tiny pools then see if you still want to.
LCV got some phone-scoped pics too which he's kindly let us show you. 
It looked like there was an infant in the group and a small immature. Some of our better pics were sent to the North East Cetacean Project to see if any could be identified from their catalogue of fin images. Only one was, a male helpfully named 'Flipper' or #964. He roams the North Sea sometimes getting as far north as the Firth of Forth and has been seen 'flinging a Harbour Porpoise about'.
A few hundred yards out of camera range it looked like they had broken off from their travels and come across a shoal of fish as there was some circling activity and more excited splashings going on that what we'd seen as they passed us. All very welcome as we'd been told every day that they'd been past in the early morning, in both directions, so it was good to catch up with them before our time on the east coast was up.
The only other thing of note was a freshly dead Rabbit, unknown cause. LCV was fascinated by it and picked it up to place in front of the hide where he hoped (we guess) the/a passing White Tailed Eagle might swoop down to carry it away. With the excitement of the dolphins over it was back to the car to drive up tzo the wetalnds for another look there passing on the way 12 Pale Bellied Brent Geese, the first of the trip so far.
At the wetlands it was business as usual with the Spotted Redshanks still too far away for a proper pic. A couple of the Avocets were closer then usual though going about their sweepy-billed business.
Our perusing of the wadwers was rudely interrupted when Short Eared Owl appeared to our left and circled round rough grass the back of the pool before coming towards us down the right hand side and coveniently landing on a fence post not too far away...we say 'conveniently' with a wry smile as like thwe Glossy Ibis yesterday it was only visible through the small side window through which everyone wanted to look making getting decent pics a bit tricky over people's assorted shoulders, scopes and cameras.
It did another fly round after a few minutes of posing on the post eventually going round the back of the hide and being lost to view but it did reappear later on the left hand side probably after hunting the rough field over the bank. Eventually it gained height and was lost to view behind us again not to be seen again.
From there we went to have a look for the drake Mandarin news of which had come over a local's radio.It was on the Humber down by the old tank traps with a small flock of Mallards, what an odd place to be for a duck that is normally seen skulking under overhanging branches around the edge of small-ish ponds. 
Those big ginger whiskers aleways remind us of the cartonn character Yosemite Sam. There wasn't much else out there in range apart from the larger flock of Shelducks. The tide was well out now and all the waders were right down on the water's edge half way to Grimsby.
Time ofr a brew and a bite to eat so we headed for the cafe. While waiting for our grub to appear we watched a flock of about 500 Golden Plovers wheeling about as if disturbed by something but we couldn't pick out a Peregrine anywhere. That's sort of standard fare for the estuary but a Great Spotted woodpecker flying out towards the river and landing on the wet edge of the saltmarsh certainly isn't - how odd but then this is Spurn and weird things do happen here. We were asked about the brown bird hovering outside the window by the couple on the next table - 'just' a Kestrel but there did seem to be far fewer today than the last couple of days.
Grub devoured and brews swigged it was off to the Canal Scrape where the Little Grebe was still catching 3-Spined Sticklebacks, this time we watched carefully as it shook them violently eventually removing the head - we've never seen that before they usually just swallow them whole head first...there's always soemthing new to see in nature even with common things you've seen hundreds of times before.
LCV's rinky dinky Thermal Imager couldn't find us any Snipe or Jack Snipe nor anything else so we were reduced to taking pics of the resident Moorhens.
With nowt happening we left the hide hearing the Cetti's Warblers in the bushes on eiither side of the path duetting or arguing or just making sure the other knew they were there. For the want of anything better to do we decided to walk the Triangle starting off going up the road towards the village. A Heron sat on the far end of the 'Wooly Bully' (Highland Cattle) field fence seemed rather odd. Looking at that we noticed much closer there was some considerable activity going on, at least 20 Stonechats had dropped in and were in a feeding frenzy darting into the field presumably to catch insects at the multitude of cow pats and twizzling up into the air like flycatchers to catch airborne flies. A couple of female Reed Buntings were among them, one of which we didn't think looked quite right but we totally failed to get a pic of it to confirm if it was a Reed Bunting or not, it probably was and we were just getting a dose of over-excited migrantitis. We saw the Heron again, this time it was perched up on the top of a Hawthorn bush, what on earth was it doing up there? Waiting for a flock of Flying Fish to come by??? Like we said earlier weird stuff happens at Spurn.
Wandering on up the lane there were a few Goldcrests and Chiffchaffs around the Churchyard and Cliff Farm but nothing else of any interest in fact barely anything else at all.
A final sewatch was called for as the afternoon of our last full day drew on. Again not a lot about, a few juvenile Gannets went by and a couple of adults. The two Grey Seals were still about - were they the same two every time??? Three single Arctic Skuas went north and several, mostly juvenile, Common Terns, several Red Throated Divers, a few Guillemots and fewer Razorbills went south. Best bird of the watch was a second winter Mediterranean Gull coming in off the sea and best combo went to a Mallard/Tufted Duck/ Guillemot trio - a strange mix of travelling companions.
Remember the dead Rabbit? Well a pair of Magpies had discovered it and were busy pulling bits of its innards out.
On the walk back to the car we had the trip's first Dunnock, three days to find a Dunnock! Can you believe that?
We'd just got settled in in the pub ordered beer and sustainance when late news broke that the Nightjar had been trapped and ringed in the field behind us, maybe we should have stayed out half an hour later. A bad dip but you can't win em all!
With little change in the weather we decided to give the seawatching hide a miss firdt thing after breakfast and instead did the unthinkable - abandoned Spurn altogether for a twitch elsewhere. In hindsight reading the Spurn report for that day we wouldn't have seen much at all so our decision to head north to Tophill Low Reserve was justified. But why did we choose to go there? Word in one of the hides earlier in the week was a couple of birders couldn't find it ending up on the wrong side of the river. Getting there was indeed convoluted to say the least. This area of britain is very much Viking territory, and what we can deduce about the Vikings is that they couldn't walk in a straight line, they must have been pie-eyed on mead or out of their trees on mushrooms all the time - there's not a road with more than a 50 yards between bends for miles, certainly it seemed that the Romans never came this way! Anyways LCV's sat-nav found the reserve entrance with no fuss at all, not sure what that other crew had been following - ancient Viking maps perchance?
The reason for all the convoluted driving was to twitch the Blue Wing Teals that had been on site for a few weeks. A helpful Ranger pointed out on the site map where they normally hang out and also gave us directions of how to get there, even so at the first junction in the path we started off in the wrong direction, 20 yards later we wer retracing our steps and now going the right way. The reserve looked interesting and we had a couple of Long Tailed Tits and a Great Spotted Woodpecker during our walk. We time limited, especially, IH who had a prior appointment and could only stay half an hour or so. It was a case of crossing fingers, toes and even buttocks that the rarities would be on show for him. We arrived at the empty hide and scanned the water, not a lot but under the overhanging branches fringing both sides of the pool there were a few ducks loafing about - was our quarry among them. If it was it wasn't for showing itself. A birder came in and told us its favourite resting place was under the branches to the left but a close inspection gave us no joy. Only one thing for it - say goodbye to IH and sit it out til lunchtime still keeping everythiing crossed.
A few Mallards were under the branches on on our right a handful of Teal and a couple of Gadwall. Three Little Grebes, Moorhens and our first Coot of the trip were best of the rest. The trees and bushes around the pool gave us at least two Cetti's Warblers, unseen as always, a flock of Long Tailed Tits with Blue and Great Tits with them along with a couple of Chiffchaffs and a Goldcrest. It was noticeable how many Chiffchaffs there were, one was even singing. A Siskin was heard flying over the pool and we saw a Stock Dove do the same.
A fter a while the sleepy hidden Teal woke up came out from under the low branches and went for a swim, there were four of them, two more than we could see from the hide.
And from the other side the Coot did the same.
But there was no sign of the Blue Winged Teal. Another birder joined us as hopeful as we were, perhaps more so as he'd driven a couple of hours to get here and already dipped it on a previous visit when they first arrived - would his luck (and ours) change? While we chatted and waited a bit of welcome sun appeared and with it a few Migrant Hawkers started flying around close enough to the hide to tempt us into trying to get a pic.
Success and just about in focus too!
Then all too soon it was time to leave and head back to the west coast empty handed.
Another slightly disappointing safari to the east coast in the end but the great company and chats and banter with the other birds on site went a long way to make up for the lack of birds. We still got some goodies, certainly can't argue with a trio of Glossy Ibis or a dozen Bottlenose Dolphins. We must be due to hit a bout of good weather here but will it be next year???
Where to next? We'll be back on more familiar territory next time.
In the meantime let us know who's not palying ball in your outback.
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