Saturday 24 January 2015

Non-additions and additions

Sauntered round the doors ... Usual fare, great grey shrike, little egret, kingfisher. Unusual fare in form of jack snipe and peregrine.

Thursday 22 January 2015

Buffy Stink.

A belated county tick for me this morning, and not the most glamorous rose-coloured starling I've had the fortune of seeing in the UK. Not quite a pink stink, more of a buffy stink...

Nevertheless, a nice bonus for the time of year. Given the urban setting in Prudhoe I opted for the 100-400 lens today.





Sunday 11 January 2015

Limited

A foray to Nortumberlands' finest locations this morning/afternoon produced a few noteworthy / useful "year ticks" and a couple of ommissions too.

Snow Buntings at Cambois were decent, with 16-17 present at the start of the outer pier, just south of the Alcan Hoppers.

At Warkworth Lane Tundra Bean Geese were still present, along with 7 Whooper Swan

Widdrington Moor lake was quiet over two visits...

East Chevington was where the action was - the Black-necked Grebe was accompanied by an unexpected Black-throated Diver and a Long-tailed Duck, with a bonus Eurasian White-fronted Goose among the Grey-lags on the entrance road. I'll not count the two Bar-headed Geese.

Druridge was difficult - hods of Eurasian Teal, but not a sniff of the Green-winged... probably still around, but the gusty conditions may not have helped, with many keeping in the grass.

West Hartford at dusk did not provide the hoped-for, and perhaps as compensation, Pink-footed Geese over the house later in the evening, ending another dour weekend.

Saturday 3 January 2015

Decent

Potter this morning resulted in a decent melody of species - great grey shrike continues along with little egret near to home, while at North  Shields a gull fest with 2 glaucous (1st year birds) a "Viking" glaucous x herring hybrid and a 2c Iceland Gull. Iphone at the ready for some images..,


Top 2 - Gaucous Gull
Middle - left "Viking", right Glaucous, Viking and GBBG.
Lower - 2c Iceland Gull




Thursday 1 January 2015

Little Twitch...

News of the Little Bustard at Fraisthorpe near Bridlington this morning put an end to plans to cycle around the local patch today. By 0910 I was packed up and ready to head south. Some time later, after a curious route courtesy of the sat-nab, I arrived and joined the hordes on the edge of a bleak, windy kale field. Perfect setting for January.

Fluked the Bustard with the first scan of the field - with its head sticking up between feeding sessions. To far for any standard images, so a bit of trusty emergency iPhone imagery and video today.




iPhone image (also appears in collage featured at top of this post)