Perils of birding

Back to Amble late morning on news of a potential county tick - Yellow-legged Gull. Alas no sign, but a catch up with the Caspian - third year in a row for me now. Departed with a slight delay resultant from the car park taking a dislike to my car, one bumper now to replace...

Need of a Black Tern at QEII came just as I was approaching the car park, so a quick pull in ... Would have been rude not too.

Back home and more bird news from Amble with a WR Sand... Might be back sooner than I'd ordinarily like.

Waders and bits at East Chevington

After a failed attempt to get common rosefinch on the county list this morning (Seaton Sluice), I headed to East Chevington for a few hours.

The north pool was very busy, with the main quarry, white-rumped sandpiper on show throughout the visit along with a good variety of waders - 25+ ruff, 10 black-tailed godwit, bar-tailed godwit, dunlin, ringed plover, redshank, lapwing, curlew, 3 little stint, snipe, 1 curlew sandpiper, some fly through sanderling and redshank.

A few pintail were amongst the teal and a single black tern occasionally came down in front of the viewing area.

From the edge of the reed bed the spotted crake continues to show intermittently, but the star of the visit was a suprise bittern that walked along the edge of the eastern shore, crossing the "crake bay".

Tried some digi-images to mixed results...

White-rumped Sandpiper

Black Tern

Test from the field!

iPhone pic of Black tern at East Chevington...

Booted off

News of the Booted Warbler at Hadston on Saturday came too late for me - experimenting with DIY had reached a point of no return...

Sunday commenced with another rapid response trip to West Hartford to collect the little stint that had dropped into say hello to the seemingly resident sanderling. Another great Cramlington year-tick.

Little Stint and Sanderling - an unlikely duo at West Hartford - picture through the scope...

With the biggy (smally?) in the bag, I headed up the coast - negative news already from Hadston, so I called into East Chevington for a decent couple of hours. The spotted crake resides, and at time has forays out into the open - chasing off snipe, redshank and teal while I was there.

A black tern dropped in and fed actively over the northern section of the north pool, while waders were complimented with spotted redshank and ruff.

Spot Shank - again through the scope

With the sun breaking through I headed to Hadston Carrs - no sign of the booted warbler, and a quick look to sea provided manx shearwater, gannet, arctic skua and hods of kittiwake.

Cresswell had greenshank, 2 spotted redshank, avocet and a ruff. Otherwise quiet.

July 2005...

...was a very good month for terns, with trips to Cemlyn Bay (Anglesey) for the sooty tern, Leighton Moss (Lancashire) for caspian tern, and more locally, Whitley Bay (Northumberland) for roseate tern and black tern. If I remember correct, Norfolk had lesser crested tern in July 2005 too! All photographs presented here were taken with the trusty Canon 10D ~ wouldn't mind another pop at a UK sooty with the 1D...

Sooty Tern - great bird seen on a very hot July afternoon - heat haze was a real problem! Twitched with Tom, who had dipped the previous day!

Caspian Tern - seen one week after the Cemlyn sooty... twitched after an overtime shift at work, so arrived in the afternoon when the light was unfavourable. Pre-Mull Bryan was there too!

Adult Roseate Tern - St Mary's (Whitley Bay) enjoyed a few years of good mid summer roseate tern gatherings, numbers have since dropped off.

Fluke photo of immature black tern and immature roseate tern.