Birdwatching: The elusive lesser whitethroat - but listen out for the song

When it does show, it is revealed as a slender little bird , smaller than its cousin the whitethroat, and with immaculate grey plumage above, pale white underparts and a black mask across each wye.

The easiest way to find one is to listen out for its song which begins with a quiet warble before continuing to a short dry rattling sound, resembling part of a chaffinch or yellowhammer's song.

Once tuned in to that sound a lesser whitethroat is much easier to find.

Lesser whitethroats arrive here by an interesting loop migration quite different to that of most other warblers who come here via north-west or west Africa.

They spend the winter in the scrublands of Egypt, Sudan, Chad and Ethiopia

and in Spring migrate along the easternmost edge of the Mediterranean before heading on a north west route to Britain.

In autumn they take the last legs of the loop.

Lesser whitethroats spend less time fattening up here before leaving, instead they fly to northern Italy and spend several weeks fattening up there.

Afterwards they take a sea crossing from Italy or Greece and into East Africa.

Surprisingly, given this unusual migration pattern, lesser whitethroats are expanding their range as far north as Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Waders have been moving north through the region including Wood sandpipers and Temminck's stints while Lesser yellowlegs, vagrants from North America, were at the Nosterfield and Filey Dams reserves.

A Wryneck was present on the Spurn reserve.