Rare warbler provides icing on the cake

I expect that this will be my last post from old Blighty, as I'm not expecting to see any birds of interest between now and the Tsawwassen to Duke Point, Nanaimo ferry.

This morning I went over to Morecambe where, first, I checked the Dome bushes for migrants (just a few 'continental' robins & blackbirds, unfortunately). A lone rock pipit flew by over the beach.
I had a scan through the numerous turnstones and redshank, in search of purple sandpipers, but I couldn't locate any. Most years, one or two turn up here to spend the winter. There were plenty of Eurasian oystercatchers and curlews around.
No sign of any Mediterranean gulls among the common, herring, lesser & great black-backed and black-headed gulls. 
Offshore, there were approximately 140 eider plus several great-crested grebes and cormorants.

I then headed up the road to Heysham Nature Reserve to catch up with some old birding chums. My arrival couldn't have been better timed as it coincided with the discovery of a yellow-browed warbler. I haven't seen one of these brilliant little eastern vagrant phylloscopus warblers for several years, so I was delighted to get great views as it actively fed in a group of willows.

I watched the processing and ringing of a few birds, including treecreeper, goldcrest (pictured) and chaffinch before heading off to Sunderland Point.
At least 8 little egret were on the marsh and there were more eider, plus several Eurasian wigeon on the river. There were plenty of rock pipits around, I saw well over a dozen, plus a few skylarks. Waders were represented by yet more curlew and redshank, plus grey (black-bellied) plover, lapwing, dunlin and a flock of 60ish bar-tailed godwit.

A return to the Jetty in Morecambe for high tide, was pretty unrevealing with much the same stuff as seen earlier.

Brit Birder Not In BC

What a difference a year makes!
It's 12 months exactly since I left the UK and became a Brit birder in BC.
It's lovely to be back, but it seems odd that I should be paying so much attention to magpies, woodpigeons and pied wagtails...
I actually year-ticked Eurasian kestrel while still sat on the plane at Manchester airport!

For a Canadian birder, on a first trip to the UK, the species I've seen/heard casually over the past 3 or 4 days, would be quite thrilling, I'm sure.

Lapwings, Eurasian curlews, golden plovers and oystercatchers, black-tailed godwits, redshanks, green sandpiper, little egret, little & great-crested grebes, black-headed, lesser-black backed and greater black-backed gulls, sparrowhawks, long-tailed, blue, coal and great tits, robins (real ones), European goldfinch, greenfinch, pied wagtail, meadow pipit, jackdaw, moorhen, Eurasian coot, etc etc. And that's without actually doing any birding, as such. I've had a stroll along the seafront at Morecambe and a wander along my old patch at Aldcliffe, but both were brief and far from intense.

Unfortunately I left the lead for my camera back in Cedar, so I can't upload any pics just yet... oh, well.
I'll keep posting the stuff that I see on here anyway, in the hope that other ex-pats, would-be travellers, or anyone else, might find the range of species encountered in northwest England in early October of interest. (Rarity fans might be interested to know that a yellow-browed warbler was seen nearby this morning - let the eastern passerines flood in!)

Right, time for another cup of tea and an Eccles cake...