Finders in the Field: Indigo Bunting, Whitburn, County Durham
Peter Bell
Saturday lunchtime, around 12.25 on 18th May, and I was at the kitchen table, writing up some bird notes from a visit to Norfolk in the previous few days. Looking up from my notes, I was astonished to see a bright blue passerine, jockeying for position with the regular Tree Sparrows at the feeders in our back garden on Lizard Lane, Whitburn. My heart skipped several beats – panic! Binning it for the first time, it immediately reminded me of the Indigo Buntings I’d seen in Florida years ago. Could it be an Indigo Bunting, or was there some other explanation? Some other blue passerine, perhaps an escape I’d never heard of?
Fumbling with my camera, I managed to get a few record shots, and my wife Janette did the same with her phone. I then reached for the Sibley American field guide, and had a reassuring glance to confirm that it was indeed a male Indigo Bunting.
I got a couple of messages off – first tentatively to a group of my birding friends, then with more conviction on the Durham Bird Club Rare and Scarce WhatsApp Group. Rare indeed! Seconds after that, the mega alert was sounding on my RBA pager, even as I was in the process of texting RBA. By then the first local birders, Barry Stidolph and Ian Mills, closely followed by Andrew Kinghorn, had already seen it, confirming my ID, which was a relief.
It wasn’t long before others started to arrive, and the kitchen was full . . . then the back bedroom . . . then the study! Our back garden at no.10 Lizard Lane is completely land-locked, so the only way of viewing it is from the house. Fortunately, the Indigo Bunting continued to perform intermittently throughout the afternoon, but began to show more readily in the adjacent garden of our neighbours, Ian and Susan on Marsden Grove - they also have feeders - and in other surrounding trees. It even perched on a TV aerial, and also sang, although I was in the house and unable to hear it. Marsden Grove made for slightly easier viewing.
I initially thought the bird was an adult because it was so bright, but more expert help, combined with better views and of course photos indicated that it was a 1st summer, having some unmoulted brownish flight feathers. This, together with the fact that it was unringed and pristine, will do its credentials no harm at all.
It showed on and off in our garden until roughly 4pm, but there were later sightings in Marsden Grove until around 7.20pm. Around 100 people must have come through the house, and there were no doubt many more on Marsden Grove who I never even saw.
Next day, Sunday, brought a far larger gathering, although morning visitors were to be disappointed, as there was no sign of the bunting. Things were looking bleak, until it reappeared on our neighbour’s feeder at 12.45. Normally quiet Marsden Grove became the focus of attention that afternoon, astonishing residents. Since then, it has ranged more widely, this morning, the 20th, singing from conifers in the adjacent Highcroft Park allotments, but it has not so far returned to our garden.
This is, if accepted as a wild bird, only the 4th UK record, and the first on the mainland. Ironically it isn’t even a UK tick for me, as I saw the 1st winter male on Ramsey Island in 1996. This one is a lot prettier though!
Visitors from as far as Kent and Norfolk caught up with it on the 18th, and many also commented on our Tree Sparrows. They are this garden’s real success story. They first appeared in our neighbour’s garden in 2010, and numbers have been increasing steadily since. We feed them Red Millet, and had a winter peak of c.55 in our small back garden. Numbers are down to single figures now, with just local breeding birds remaining, but they are even nesting under the eaves of the adjacent house on Marsden Grove. The Bunting incidentally is only interested in Sunflower Hearts.
Special thanks to Ian Mills, Andrew Kinghorn and Sam Viles, both for their advice on ageing the bird, and also in helping to organise the subsequent twitch. Thanks also to everyone else, for being so kind and generous. We organised a collection, to be shared equally between Durham Bird Club and Durham Wildlife Trust. This raised £367 in that first afternoon. The following day, one of Marsden Grove’s residents supplied bacon butties and tea, raising funds for the local Scouts.
This small garden has growing pedigree, with a Wryneck in September 2022, and a couple of Yellow-broweds before that, not to mention a few decent fly-overs, but these pale into insignificance now. We’ve lived here for almost 27 years, and I doubt we’ll ever see another day like the 18th May 2024.
I used to dream of moving to Barra or Tiree and finding an American passerine in my own garden – but I never imagined I could do that right here in Whitburn!
Peter Bell
20 May 2024
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