After a morning of moderate exercise I opted to take the short drive north to the Eshott area north of Morpeth for what would sure to be great views of an adult common crane. Alas no! This fine bird was very, very distant!!
Initially observed from the grid reference supplied on the pager (see above "very distant from here" marker), I soon headed east for a better vantage point. The crane could be seen with obstructed view as I approached Eshott (on the road heading north to the village), but closer, resticted views were obtained from the road a few hundred yards south of "South Farm" - see above. From here the crane was maybe 800 yards away, but as it kept to the east of the chosen field it was often out of sight, under the brow of the field in front. Even from here I had to stand on the top of a gate to see the bird, so no pictures today then! A link to the multimap featured above is here.
While in the area two great spotted woodpecker were noted, along with common buzzard, grey-lag geese, teal, dunnock, lapwing (displaying) and several singing skylark.
Heading back I called into West Hartford, flushing a woodcock as I got out of the car - a great start, but what ended up being the only highlight of the stop. Oystercatcher and lapwing sat on the pool edge, six teal were roosting on the small pool to the west of the brick building and there were a couple of grey heron kicking about.
Back at Birdingsometimes HQ it appears we have a blackbird nesting in our overgrown conifer tree.
3 comments:
The sighting was put out with the 'view from higher vantage point' for two reasons, first as you said it was mostly not visible from the closer road (at least whilst I was there)and second the parking/traffic issue on the closer road may be an issue as there is a bend just before the point at which viewing is possible.
Parking isn't ideal at either location really - the higher vantage point involved parking across gated field access or in a passing place (it's a single track road).
And I thought the 2008 Ashington birds had been distant....!
I agree, although there is more traffic on the Felton road, wait till you see my record shot, possibly one of my most distant ever!
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