Up & Down

Migrated north late morning to check out the low tide across Fenham Flats... thousands of waders on view and a hundred or so Pale-bellied Brent Geese, a single Little Egret and outside the hide, a flock containing Tree Sparrow and Twite. No sign of the Hooded Crow, it appears to have been around Holy Island.

Budle Bay was also busy, with an equal number of Brent Geese also present. Single Peregrine on fence posts to the north.

Stag Rocks produced two Great Northern Diver and several Shags, Long-tailed Duck etc.... and the delightful view to the south...

Monks House Pool, increased in size from the wet weather, provided nice views of the Red-necked Grebe that was picked up a week ago - no Water Pipit in the quick soiree, but not a concern given the Druridge bird last week.

No sign of the Black-necked Grebe at Drudge Bay CP (Little only noted), while Cresswell provided, at last, the Long-billed Dowitcher, along with Barn Owl, plenty of Wigeon and Teal.

Openings

Day 1 of 2016 was a humble affair, with a couple of mild pottering in the afternoon. Pottering 1 saw a quick visit to the delights of Killingworth and the smaller portion of the lake. Our quest was simple - the redhead Smew, which has remained teasingly close to Cramlington with residencies at both the private Shasun pool and over at Big Waters.

Ascot was not productive Asio-wise, but a number of common year list padders sufficed.

Pottering 2 was later in the afternoon, with a jaunt to West Hartford; fine views of hunting Barn Owl were obtained.


Day 2 has weather-wise been a torrid affair, the birding somewhat better though.

QEII Park at Washington provided great views of a 2nd Winter Iceland Gull. No camera other than the iPhone, so I tried my hand at "digi-binning" with moderate success...

Pity the BHG wasn't the main photographic objective, however a record shot of the Iceland I guess....

With the smell of success from the comfort of the car, destination two was to be a similar mission - Widdrington providing Great Northern Diver from the driving seat.

My arrival at East Chevington was made somewhat better with a Lesser Redpoll on the trackside. The North Pool still had the Slavonian Grebe along with some more usual suspects - including a nice party of Red-Breasted Merganser.

Heading up the road to Druridge Bay Country Park provided the biggest surprise of the trip - rolling down the bank to the water sport car park I noticed a bulky bird hunted on the grass next to the gravel path. Stopping, winding down the passenger window I raised my bins to be confronted by a stinking Pomarine Skua! Bizarre!

With the "success" of the Iceland Gull digi-binning I set my self up to grab a record shot - only to find the bird had lifted.... No sign anywhere despite a good look round the pool / car parks...

Druridge Pools did not provide any Water Pipit, but in compensation 1 drake Pintail and a scabby drake moulting Scaup were noted.

Cresswell appeared Dowitcher-less, but there was a chance it was handled up somewhere out of view. A few Snipe, 1 Water Rail and hods of Wigeon / Teal.

At Snab a half hearted sea watch in the wind, rain and depleting light did not provide much out of the ordinary - 1 Gannet, Kittiwake, Fulmar and a few Guillemot. Newbiggin didn't produce anything either - not even a Mediterranean Gull! Sea was spectacular though....

Final stop, River Blyth - few waders added to the day list and not much else.

Owls, Mega Scoter and the like.

Given it's still "only" February, the birding pace is still rather decent. Despite work commitments and the like.

Friday evening was spent stood in a damp field as the sunset - the quarry, Barn Owl, finally achieved in much darkness over the fields at West Hartford.

Saturday saw another delayed-duck mission - with a trip to Cheswick for the drake Black Scoter. I'm guessing this is the bird that was off Stag Rocks a few years back - a mega in it's own rights and a class county catch up for Mark. The bird was distant, so the footage below, taken through the scope on 70x magnification and the iphone on full digital zoom is amusing, if anything.

Heres the link to the 2011 bird... http://birdingsometimes.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/black-scoter-stag-rocks-record-shots.html

Image from 2011 - off Stag Rocks

In addition, loads of Long-tailed Duck present at perhaps 4 Great Northern Diver.

Further south at Stag Rocks, more Common Scoter, approximately 11 Slavonian Grebe, Red-throated Divers and more Long-tailed Duck.

An attempt at Ross's Goose was unsuccessful, but plenty of Pink-feet at Stobswood.

The great little tawny finch

The last few days have been spent local.

Sunday saw an afternoon visit to the River Blyth to see the Great Northern Diver at the confluence of the Sleekburn.

Weekday birding has been round the doors, with a cracking Tawny Owl perched on the roadside at the delightful industrial estate near home, worth the 05:20 departure for earlyshift...

After work, mild excitement in the form of a male chaffinch in the garden - possibly the fourth "in garden" record... not sure why this species is so unusual here - less than 100m from the door I see them regularly on the Horton Burn... the next destination in this rambling post - with todays potter along revealing the Little Egret as close to the house as it could get, a kingfisher too.

West Hartford still has teal - I feel a green-winged will appear soon... and 4 wigeon, an infrequent visitor to the flash pool.

Horton Burn - The Little Egret is on this picture (the white dot on the far bank to the left of the photo... honest)

From the archive: December 2002

Heres' an old one digitally speaking... rufous turtle dove at Stromness, Orkney in December 2002. Image taken thru' scope with a 3 mega pixel compact... oh the days of digi-scoping!

It was a cold overnight drive to Scrabster, then with a day return ticket, we crossed to Stromness on the ferry. Luckily the target bird was within walking distance of the Orkney ferry terminal.

A great days birding was had, with two life ticks - the rufous turtle dove, and more embarrassingly, rock dove (!)...

Supporting cast included great northern diver, grey phalarope, twite, iceland gull, black guillemot and in the highlands the next day, great grey shrike, crested tit.

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

Not so great northern diver

Spent a few hours this afternoon sitting in the cold waiting for the Whittle Dene great northern diver to swim closer to the causeway ... which it didn't. Cracking bird but no good for the camera! Two kingfisher were kicking about and I almost got a photo as one landed on a fence rail, however my reaction was too slow and it swifty moved on. Other birds included 1 gooseander, great crested grebe, redwing, common buzzard and great spotted woodpecker.