MEGA Twitch!

I arrived home from work feeling exhausted and immediately fell asleep on the sofa. At 6.10pm my Mother phoned me to say she had just walked into the garden to get the washing in when she flushed a bird on the ground, that was almost/similar size to a thrush and was finch like. The bird immediately flew up into the willow tree and to the back of the garden towards the adjacent field. Mother didn't notice any obvious colour to the bird, but it had a fairly long tail – she only saw it for seconds. It was the song that excited her, which she described as a strong and warbling type tune with a rich mixture of notes and it carried on with this tune as it flew up into the tree and to the back of the garden. She had never heard any thing like this in her life and 'knew it was something good'. She was very frustrated that it had disappeared.

I flew out of the house with camera and bins, still half asleep and arrived at Holme fairly quickly!!! I skulked around the garden for ages and immediately became very p*ssed off when I realised whatever this bird was had passed through. We sat for ages discussing every possibility and I played no end of tunes via phone apps. When I played a BOBOLINK, Mother immediately said 'that's it, that's what it sounded like'!!! A brief/poor view and song does not nail this at all, but just need to hope that someone else finds this over the next few days. Also as Mother said, it could have been a cage bird of some kind, who knows!

I refused to let this go and phoned Eddie M. for advice who said that Bobolinks like grasslands, so I went into the field adjacent to the garden – this entailed climbing over a high barbed wire fence that lines Mother's garden. I cut my hand and trashed my trousers, but it had to be done. I walked all round that field and found nothing. Returned back over the barbed wire fence – trousers now need to be binned. Tried to phone NWT and NOA wardens for advice and assistance, but no replies on their phones.

Drove around the village in desperation and searched the huge green field in the centre of the village, then drove to the village car park and searched the grass area. Then walked around part of the golf course until dusk. Lots of Swifts over the golf course. Sulking massively, I returned to my parents.

The evening got much worse as Father started to hallucinate and was hell on earth to get changed for bed and really played us up. I left at 10.45pm.

So, Holme birders and all, please search hard tomorrow. I so wish I wasn't at work – I would cover every possible area to find this bird. Roll on Saturday!