Unfurl the (Rustic) Bunting
Rustic Bunting, Gunton, Lowestoft, 3rd October 2020
A curious paradox of a passion for birds is the not infrequent desire for misfortune to befall their migrations. This contradiction is none more so than in autumn when birds of the year are embarking on maiden migrations carried by inexperienced wings. Malign and inclement weather systems are eagerly watched for by birders beguiled by these great winged exoduses. The forecast for Saturday, 3rd October 2020 held great promise for a conspiracy of season, weather and avian misadventure.
With high pressure reaching deep into northern Europe and a lurking low pressure system centred over France moving northwards, the trap was set. The conducive conditions over Scandinavia induced a major departure of migrants fleeing cooler, darker northern latitudes. Drifting out through German Bight on the easterlies, nocturnal migrants increasingly found themselves funnelled along a rain-ladened frontal edge of low cloud in the southern North Sea. Bearing: north Suffolk coast. Imperative: landfall. At dawn, the vanguard of the overnight flight began to arrive in the increasingly tempestuous conditions. These itinerants included an East Asia-bound bunting: an egg in June; now a detoured rider of the storm.
Arriving at Lowestoft North Denes early morning, a circuit of the disused overgrown campsite produced a trickle of arriving Song Thrushes Turdus philomelos and a noticeable increase in migrant Robins Erithacus rubecula. Bumping into Andrew Easton at the foot of Gunton Cliff, we joined forces to work the weeds for migrants; a fleeing Common Snipe Gallinago gallinago towards the end of our bushwhacking gave momentary excitement. Having combed the usual spots with little reward, Andrew headed back to his car at the Denes Oval and I retraced my steps to Links Hill.
Ascending Links Road, the ticking and flicking of Robins along the southern edge of Warrenhouse Wood demanded a closer look. Approaching the stunted White Poplar clump on the seaward side of this most easterly wood, newly-arrived Robins were holding court all along the Elm-dominated edge. Overhead, the Song Thrush rush was quickening, the tsips of these sea voyagers increasingly punctuating the gloomy October morning.
Scanning the Robin ranks for something blue-tailed, amongst the soundscape of ticking transients I became aware of a tick with a difference: a thin, high-pitched tsic almost beyond the edge of hearing. Insistent and close by, a minute passed before I realised this enigma was emanating from the poplars immediately in front of me. Despite its apparent proximity, I could not locate the source. Time was ticking, quite literally.
At this point, a Robin came to the rescue and saw off the ticking target, the mystery bird flying – still calling – a short distance to a Gorse bush in the nearby marram grass. Bins up, a bunting. Back on, jinking in the shaded gorse litter. White tips to the wing coverts, bubblegum pink legs, whitish underparts…with raspberry ripple flank stripes, and, turning, a face with yellow tramlines. And raised crown feathers hinting at a crest. The jigsaw puzzle was rapidly piecing together. This was no Reed Bunting despite the rational part of my mind attempting to sabotage my optimism. Rustic Bunting!
Urgently switching to documentary mode, a few photographs were rattled off just as the bunting slunk into the marram out of view. A call to Andrew to cautiously announce my ‘ticking bunting’ discovery luckily reached him before he had reached his car. Arriving posthaste, we reviewed my back-of-camera images.
Moving into the dunes to view the area where I thought the bunting would be resulted in it flushing towards Link Road car park where it alighted in a small patch of marram. With Andrew in agreement to the identity, the news was announced on my Twitter feed and the local birders’ WhatsApp group.
As the first twitchers began to arrive, the Rustic Bunting eventually showed in the Links Road car park thanks to Andrew’s relocation. The bunting proved to be exceptionally confiding and performed well throughout the day to an appreciative audience. It was seen early the next morning in the same area but was reported to have flown high south around 08:15, the last sighting. Ageing and sexing of E. rustica in the field is considered doubtful, although the obviously pointed retrices (tail flight feathers) are highly suggestive of it being a first calendar year (-winter) bird.
The Rustic Bunting has undergone a marked population decline since the 1980s (Edenious et al, 2016), with some parallels to the drastic range-wide population collapse of the Yellow-breasted Bunting Emberiza aureola. Since the 1990s peak, occurrences have declined with re-admission to the BBRC list in 2015.