A crowd of binoculars and cameras jostling each other at the bowling green. “It’s a yellow-browed warbler,” someone exclaimed. “Blown here from Siberia. Heading for Thailand. Look, in the privet!”

We had not been planning to meet lost vagrant birds, but the Headland at Hartlepool is one of the best places to see them. The Headland, an anchor of magnesium limestone casting itself out into the North Sea, is often the first land a migrating bird will reach.