On 17 Oct 20, a Rufous Bushchat was found at Stiffkey on the Norfolk coast. It showed well on the edge of the salt marsh, until its last sighting on 21 Oct. Having been found on a Saturday, then it was twitchable over the weekend, with many Birders making the trip to see it. At the time, the C19 numbers were rising significantly with another C19 wave on the way. The second English lockdown began less than three weeks later on 5 Nov. My twitching buddies all went & saw it. But I decided I couldn't justify going due to the rising C19 risk & the likelihood of the imminent lockdown.
This was only the ninth UK record, but it would have been a Tick for virtually all the UK twitchers given the previous records had been a two day individual at Flamborough on 5-6 Oct 1972 & one day individual on 9 Aug 1980 at Prawle, Devon. The record before that was a long staying individual that occurred from 2-9 Sep 1963 at Skegness: apparently one early twitcher heard about this through the post & successfully twitched it from the South East of the UK. There are also three Irish records, but the last one was in 1968. I had made my decision & I was comfortable with it. But I also reckoned I wasn't going to stand much of a chance of another one turning up.
Less than a year later, I was stunned to see on RBA that another Rufous Bushchat had been found at Coverack on the Cornish Lizard. C19 was still a problem in the UK, however, I had had two jabs by that date. I was more comfortable about travelling, albeit I still wasn't comfortable with the higher risk of car sharing: but there again, my twitching mates had seen the Norfolk individual. The only problem was it was a Monday lunchtime & I was working. But I didn't have anything urgent to worry about. In the latter days of being a permanent employee, I would just ask to take the time off or just go & let work know that a rare Bird had turned up & I was going twitching, providing it wouldn't impact any deadlines. Work always knew I would ensure I either made the time up later or in the worst case, I would do a few less hours of overtime that week. But having switched to contract work, I had to be more responsible. Fortunately, I had an understanding boss & she was happy for me to go at short notice & make the time up later that week.
I left just after 13:00 & arrived at Coverack just before 17:00. Parking had looked to be an issue as there was only a small car park. Fortunately, there was one space left when I arrived. It was a short walk to where the Rufous Bushchat was showing. I turned the corner & saw a small group who were watching it. I saw it immediately & the pressure was off. I wasn't sure whether I would need the telescope, but I took it anyway. It was so close that binoculars were perfectly adequate, although the telescope provided even better views. It was feeding on the footpath & sitting on stones next to an isolated house. As I was driving to Cornwall, I realised that in my rush to leave, I had the left my camera at home. I had to fall back on my Leica telescope & the mobile. Despite it being a brilliant telescope, I've never succeeded in getting any worthwhile photos from this combination. The Rufous Bushchat was no exception, albeit the photos weren't as bad as they usually are.
