Beachy bunting bungle (19 October 2020)

Monday 19 October. I arrived at Shooter's Bottom, Beachy Head at 07:25 to make the most of the free parking up to 8. It was very quiet with nothing flying over and only a few Chiffchaffs seen. As I was walking back through the SE quadrant I saw a small bird sat in a bush 15-20m away. Expecting it to be a Robin I was surprised to see it was a bunting, more so that it looked very colourful on the head. Thinking it was a Little Bunting I fired off a burst of 9 photos. The automatic review of the last showed it to be very dark so I quickly reduced the shutter speed to take some more but the bird had vanished. I slowly approached the bush and tried some playback of Little then Reed Bunting calls. Nothing. Reviewing my images it was hard to make out much detail but they did not appear to show an eye-ring and looked to be quite heavily streaked below and I started doubting my identification. Further looking failed to produce another sighting and I assumed it had flown off. Seeing John and Doreen Cooper on the walk back to the car I only mentioned it as an afterthought and promptly forgot it. I remained at Beachy (and Crowlink) to 15:30 during which time I'd seen virtually nothing - 3 Sparrowhawks, 2 Buzzards, 2 Green Woodpeckers, Jay, 4 Ravens, just 3 Swallows, 10 Chiffchaffs, 8 Goldcrests, 26 Stonechats, 21 Pied Wagtails, 120 Linnets and 40 Goldfinches. I'd also heard single Redpoll and Siskin but failed to see them. Easily my worst visit this autumn and I didn't even bother writing up my notes until after 22:00. Looking at the bunting images I was able to brighten them enough to begin to wonder if I'd been right about it initially. Reading up reminded me a whitish wing-bar was diagnostic for Little and the streaked underparts I'd been worried about a red herring while the lack of apparent eye-ring might have been due to an unfortunately positioned branch hiding its eye. I sent a couple of images to Dave Cooper who sees Little Buntings most years (my last was in 1994!) and he responded very positively, even pointing out that the smallest part of a white eye-ring was visible. Dave also managed to brighten my images further and close to midnight I posted very belated news of the Little Bunting sighting. Not such a bad day after all.

Little Bunting in Shooters Bottom, Beachy Head - image as taken

my effort at cropping and brightening

improved further by Dave Cooper, a pity they hadn't looked like this to start with

Chiffchaff seen briefly near the Hotel garden, it had a hint of Siberian about it

Stonechat at Beachy, still present in good numbers

Green Woodpecker in Whitbread Hollow

Clouded Yellow in the rides