Peddled

The first few days of 2013 have been a slow meander bird wise, with all ornithological activity done from the seat of my bike.

New Year's Day was curtailed by high winds, so the north of Cramlington was concentrated upon - the Horton Burn dipper was picked up near the affectionately named Boghouses, and kingfisher, grey wagtail are always pleasing for the day one year list. Jack snipe is available in the vicinity but a lack of suitable foot ware prevented a look. Later perhaps.

Wednesday to Friday was spent on 12 hour shifts - so it was dark both sides...

Saturday was the bird clubs winter big day - while for me it was a shorter than expected trip out on the bike with a trip to Blyth seafront and the realisation of an apparent slow puncture. It was a quicker ride back as I fought to beat the impeding flat tyre and long walk. Still, the short journey produced a few new birds for the list including red throated diver, cormorant and shag.

News on Sunday of crossbills in Cramlington saw an early afternoon bike ride to Valley Park - a smashing spot. We managed three crossbill (7 had been seen earlier), a couple of roe deer, plenty of reed bunting, chaffinch, bullfinch, great spotted woodpecker and the like. At the Southfields roundabout the adult lesser lack backed gull flew over the road, always good to get this early as its quite a scarce winterer here.

Arcot was full of wild fowl of limited species - wigeon, tufted duck, teal, mallard and gadwall, plus mute swan, Canada geese, coot and moorhen.

Beacon lane provided redwing and fieldfare and 45 grey lag flew west over us as we approached Bassington NR. Our arrival at Bassington was greeted by seven lesser redpoll in the north-west corner, another good species to "get out the way" in January. Not much else there, a couple of goldcrest and a blackbird to be precise.


The wonders of modern technology informed is that today's bike ride was 16 odd km, not a bad circuit, of which the map can be seen here:

http://www.mapmywalk.com/view_workout?w=218370262

Such fun.

Hopefully I'll be out tomorrow, maybe travelling a bit further too.

Cross, east, greater then waxy!

A quick textual update, as another busy day continues to thwart any efforts to edit photographs taken. Started the day well, with flyover crossbill while replenishing the garden bird feeders - a belated Cramlington tick for me! News that the "eastern" black redstart was stills present on Holy island had me heading north on a lovely mild winter day. A chance bump into AC on the road in to the village provided opportunity to return the loan memory card from the recent firecrest fiasco, and prompted a quick about turn to walk in the correct direction to the ebred. What a stunner it was too, looking forward to uploading some images here... The journey back was interrupted by the news that the AWOL greater yellowlegs had been relocated on Druridge Bay CP - twenty minutes later I was there... But views were distant. Some field craft ensued and I eventually got within photographable distance, tho light was fading (14:15!!!). Bizarrely the better images taken were of it on the grassy footpath that encircles the artificial lake! Arriving home the familiar trill of waxwing welcomed me as I unpacked the car - 28 today perched in trees adjacent BSHQ... Pics soon...

Mull

We arrived on Mull via the 07:30 from Oban - a journey that had started well with three otter in Oban harbour along with several dapper black guillemot and some crossbill. Our arrival at Craignure forty-five minutes later was equally as good, with another otter on the shore next to the harbour.

The main objective of Saturday was to get to Iona early - so we headed along the A849 to Fionnphort on what was a beautiful drive - cloudless skied, mirror-like water on the sea. Our progress was slowed somewhat by the amazing (by north-east England birders definition...) of great northern diver - a species that was to dominate our marine observations. There were many present, including some stunning summer pluage birds - see above! Also observed were many red-breasted merganser and eider.

While no eagles were seen in the morning, many buzzard were noted. As described in the previous post the main quarry on Iona was corncrake - and almost immediately upon arrival we could hear the crakes "crexing" - however it was three painful hours before two birds emerged - in a garden of all places!! A great tick for two of the group.

Back on Mull we headed back along Loch Scridain and joined the B8035 to travel in the direction of Knock. Our journey was slow and many stops were made to check the shores, cliffs and general stunning scenery as we drove. Highlight of the journey was meeting a familiar face from Northumberland - Bryan Raines, who "migrated" to Mull a few years back. Bryan will be familiar to many of the bird blog readers as he can be found here. It was great to catch up, and the mention of a pint later was suffice to give us a clear route back to our digs! Our meeting point was at the newly established "official" (there's a locked hide of sorts above the road) white-tailed eagle viewing point - and sure enough the female was sitting, albeit distant!

We continued our journey and it was not long before we bumped into another immature white-tailed eagle - and then another... Not quite as close as I'd like, but always impressive and a second tick of the day for cousin Rob!

We began our journey back to the digs (Bunessan: Argyll Arms - great accommodation and breakfast!!), not without another look at the eagle nest - male dropped in with the female, and a  very pleasant couple of pints with Bryan first at Pennyghael, which included a tame grey heron in the pub garden, eating dog food!

Sunset at Bunessan - Image by Rob Lawson

Sunday dawned a little more cloudy, but it was not without good birding - pre-breakfast included three rock dove feeding on the shore outside the hotel and a very showy grasshopper warbler on the road to Ardchiavaig.

Our drive back to Craignure after a very large Scottish breakfast featured decent birds including crossbill at Pennyghael, golden eagle and plenty of hooded crow. As with our arrival, our departure was met with another otter at Craignure!

We departed on the one o'clock ferry and left feeling rather sad that the trip was coming to an end - but all agreed it was a great success... a short trip with bird species seen high in the '70s, a couple of ticks for the group and a load of good banter and micky taking, endurance of the foul and ill effect of real ale too... roll on next year for our next venture!

Above - the "crew" - Mark, Rob, Me and John B

Hanging Out With Crossbill

I've seen some great images of Crossbill at Harwood Forest recently - Richard Dunn, Tom Tams and Colin Bradshaw have all got some smashing images of male and females' on or near the Gibbet.

So thats where I headed this afternoon. It's a nice drive up there, with a couple of nice straight roads with sharp dips and rises to add to the excitement.

At the forest there must have been some sort of quad bike do as there were a load of folk thrashing about.

It did not take long for the crossbill to appear - a pair on top of the gibbet, so I made my way over to a suitable vantage point with the camera and waited. And waited. While hunched on the cold wet ground I had further great views, this time of a pair sitting proud in the conifers above my parked car!

Alas, luck was not with me today, so the image to the right is a reminder why I made the effort in the first place - arn't crossbill a cracking species?! This image was taken at Druridge Bay Country Park in February 2006 when a small party over wintered. Camera body was the trusty 10D...

Below is the vista north of the Gibbet view-point, arted-up in photoshop - cold and bleak!