Little & Lesser

Little Owl - very easy to overlook!

 Headed out on the bike for a quick circuit of Cramlington, after Gordon's reports of Golden Plover and Goosander. Only successful on the later - a drake on Arcot. The Little Owl remains faithful to a favoured tree - and very easy to overlook as it lurks in a deep fork!

Later I head south to a certain residence in Tynemouth - a mis-timed visit to be honest, as the anticipated sun lit garden was almost entirely in shade. Nevertheless, the target was present, feeding on the closest feeders to the very much appreciated make-shift observation platform. An interesting bird indeed...

Lesser Whitethroat Sp.

Lesser 'throat & Pec

No sign of the presumed eastern lesser throat so far today, so here's another record shot from Saturday. For the record, this photo was taken at 17:55, ISO 1250 (should have bumped it up actually), 1/50th exposure, 500 + 1.4 extender, manual focus, fill flash.

Early Sunday afternoon saw me back at St Mary's - taking in distant views of the Pectoral Sandpiper on the wetland, then migrantless trudging around the north end and near-by cemetery.

Halimodendri Lesser Whitethroat

Visited St Mary's again today after news of a central asian lesser whitethroat was released on the pager.

This presumed halimodendri individual was very mobile and ended up spending most of its' time feeding high up in the willows at the north end of the wetland. The image here was taken late afternoon - 17:30 ~ 17:50 ish, and when natural light was extremely poor.

Camera focus was done manually and fill flash was used - without which I would have got no record at all.

There has been very little photoshop work in these images in an attempt to keep the as shot details of plumage as accurate as possible.

Hopefully the bird will stick and give another opportunity to get usable images...

Birding World has a good article on this form in volume 14 number 1 (January 2001 review). The bird here at St Mary's seems to match the bird in Sweden that was discussed, with reddish tone to mantle and rump, and hind-crown. Ear coverts grayish, slightly darker than crown, narrow white crescent under eye and dark lores. The bird did call once in my 4 hours spent at the site - a single high pitch "che".

If time permits and better images are not obtained, I'll post some more from this late afternoon session ...