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However, things changed on the night of 25-26 September, as I discovered the calls of an American Golden Plover that had twice flown over my microphone – this, I was very happy with. I decided to focus all my attention on shorebirds and spent 26th looking for the plover on Ouessant. The complete lack of any American passerines in the British Isles and the fact that it had now been eight years since the last New World wood warbler in France, brought me back to earth and made me think that I had no real hope of finding anything unusual. It's fair to say that the weather looked quite promising for American vagrants but it was physically and mentally very demanding to keep on searching in the heavy rain, when you struggle to find even a single Common Chiffchaff.
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It seemed as if the wind and rain would never stop and I could imagine the island being emptied of its birds as the days went by. So, I went to Ouessant and, as it turned out, got marooned during a stormy week that extinguished any hope of making decent recordings. However, this year I wanted to try something new, having some thoughts of 'Yanks' and wanting to look for quiet places to make sound recordings ahead of the publication of my forthcoming book on bird sounds ( Les Oiseaux par le Son). In the past, I have visited the island with my birding mates in late October, hoping for some 'Sibes' at the end of the autumn – a time when there are dozens of binoculars staring into the bushes here. I was the only birder on Ouessant, France, during the windy and rainy days of late September.