October 19th
Pease Dene. Borders.

I had a two hour window of opportunity in this part of the world. I could have taken the easy option and gone twitching at St Abbs Head for the Sardinian Warbler and Pallas's Warbler, but being very much into finding my own I chose Pease Dene. Great looking place but with ridiculous amounts of cover making it hard work. The result-a few migrants, Goldcrest, Redwing, Chiffs, felt like the Pallas's Warbler was just round the next corner, but in the end I had to leave before I'd got in amongst all the cover available down at the seaward end towards the Caravan Park.

October 20th.
Kilminnning

Another window of opportunity to be utilised before a lunchtime engagement. Early start to the E Neuk of Fife. I had the choice of looking for yesterdays Dusky Warbler at the Ness or doing my own thing at Kilminning. Guess which I did..
A Chiffchaff with a sad sounding peep call seemed good for a Siberian bird but I started having doubts after my record shots appear to show too much in the way of yellowy tones. The call was certainly on the money and very different to the other Chiffs present.
More straightforward was a lovely Firecrest, my first in Scotland.

My first Scottish Firecrest; this compares with at least five Yellow-brows since I moved up in 2009. The complete reversal to what I was used to down South.

Chiff with a call of Siberian. Rather confusingly this picture looks less  olive and yellow than when I was reviewing the image on the back of the camera. Haven't done anything with the pic other than crop it. The head pattern with long thick buffy supercil  looks good for tristis. The rather dark flanks contrasting with pale belly also look good but there does seem to be a hint of yellow streaking unless just an effect of the lighting conditions?