MEGA - Orphean Warbler, Pembrokeshire

Played it pretty cool with this monster and completely lucked in by not taking a day's holiday on Friday and waiting til the weekend. Matt decided he would drive and after picking me up at 12.30am we then added JK and CG to the silver bullet and soon enough we were on our way. A couple of savage things happened on route...we saw a black & white moggy get half mullered and then we had to have a mcdonalds meal at 3.00am as the breakfast menu doesn't start until 5.00am!

So after a chicken legend meal, chips and a coke we were soon on our way. JK couldn't hack a mcdonalds but he did put away an espresso at 3.00am...pretty impressive! Soon enough we were on site and still had an hour and a half of darkness! After about 10mins dossing in the car we headed for the queue and got moaned at for pushing in...standard!

After a quick march for 400yds our car load all managed to squeeze into the first group to enter the garden. After about 5mins of staring at nothing Josh J managed to see the bird low down in the apple trees. Soon enough it was on show for all to see. Though one bloke in front of me seemingly still had his lens covers on...!Anyway...this is what it looked like at 1/30sec eating an apple!

Orphean Warbler

Through the bins the undertail coverts seemed to be pretty clean but the views were not in great light. In flight the white seemed to extend up the outer tail feathers but again all the views were brief when it flew from apple tree to apple tree. The bird wasn't as big as I was expecting though the bill structure was impressive. A brilliant bird to see and thanks to Matt for doing all the driving and to the house owner and volunteers who set up a fantastically organised twitch.

The only raised voice I heard at the twitch was the bloke in the queue who was moaning about being first in the car park and not being first in the queue...that you even weren't allowed in the carpark til 7.30am so pipe down doush bag!