Seeing red, red, red, & not seeing red.

Suitably refreshed from the difficult early morning visit to West Hartford, Mark and I headed north on a planned casual potter in the search of migrants. However, the day was not as straight forward as it had initially seemed.None of that "look for our own birds" lark, its much easier to go and see what others have put effort in for!

So Lynemouth was our first stop, and two very nice red-rumped swallow were pointed out over the sewage works (found by Ian I believe - nice one).

Pretty much always distant the two overshoots were mixed in with healthy numbers of sand martin, house martin and barn swallow. A county tick for Mark, so a great start.

We had one brief close flypast, and all I could manage was a record shot of the bird veering off... not as photogenic as the Wallsend Swallow Pond bird a few years back...

There was some interesting conversation about antics at another site earlier in the morning. Suffice to say the culprit remains blissfully uneducated.

Next up, more watching birds that others had found. A cracking male whinchat near Cresswell was a year tick, while garaganey continue to elude.

Further north still, a stunning male red-backed shrike near Hauxley gave distant views but was much appreciated by all.

Chips consumed at Amble then up the coast for the final "red"... not so lucky this time the red-spotted bluethroat at Football Hole had last been seen a couple of hours before our arrival, no doubt disturbed by a horse or perhaps tresspassing tape wielding idio,,,,, whatever....