Infrequencies

Time has been a premium lately...

Ruddy Duck - May, Northumberland (iPhone)

Great White Egret - June, Newton-by-the-Sea (iPhone)

A week away... Portugal...

Then back in the County - and an elusive County Tick for me...

Night Heron, Whittle Dene (iPhone)

Ring

Another venture up Druridge Bay on another sunny day. Ring-necked Duck back at Hauxley, just out of the lenses reach, and then at Druridge a Great White Egret consorting with a Little Egret...

3 Little Egret closer to home.

Wet Weekends

Busy weekend, travelling about the county in search of whatever was available... Red-necked Phalarope, Bonaparte's Gull, Wood Warbler, Pied Flycatcher, Roseate and Little Tern, Lesser Whitethroat , Great White Egret stood out, and...

Viewings

Potter out this morning provides further viewings / Great white egret, garganey, little egret, Bonaparte's Gull...

Outing 6

Outing 6 of the annual 10 year project - a weekend with John B, Mark A, Rob L and guest appearances from Ian R and Sacha B...

Potential for rares appeared high on Friday 2nd, with reports of Norfolk Blyths' Pipit and Marsh Sandpiper... alas it was a quieter weekend than hoped - but not without 5 more ticks for the overall 10 year trip list

10 Years 10 Trips…
Trip Totals	81	117	115	98	112	107
Cumulating Totals	81	145	181	193	211	215
	Mull/Iona 8/9 May 2010	Norfolk 27/29 May 2011	Northumberland 23/24/25 Mar 2012	Speyside and Scotland Tour 3/4/5 May 2013	Norfolk and Suffolk 1/2 Mar 2014	Norfolk 3/4 Oct 2015

The new species - Golden Pheasant (quite unexpected at Wolferton - male on the roadside early morning), Yellow-browed Warbler, Arctic Skua, Great Skua and Great White Egret.

Some pictures...

Time for a quick chat

Delighted to finally add Woodchat Shrike to my County list this afternoon - a species I've seen three times in neighbouring Durham and others elsewhere. Albeit very distant, and a record shot only through the scope at x70 with an iPhone on full digital zoom too...

Cracking bird!

Close by even worse pictures were taken of the great white egret at Druridge (most certainly a different bird to the one I found at Arcot last month), I'll spare readers of those atrocities, it was bad enough last time...

Some nice views of both yellow wagtail and whimbrel too.

Big (r)egrets

Some numpties in the fields of West Hartford curtailed an evening visit, so Arcot seemed a good bet for sand Martin - and indeed it was, with perhaps 20 hawking the pond.

A few pochard (no ferruginous!) and tufted duck were joined by 2 Canada geese, which, to their merit, managed to flush a hidden GREAT WHITE EGRET from the south west corner. The egret flew up and landed in the dead trees frequented by the early 2000s osprey and proceeded to survey the surrounds for a mere 10 - 12 minutes, sufficient time for STH & GM to arrive before it flew off north west.

No camera, just the phone, and a flat battery - incredibly frustrating as I'd just manged to line the iPhone camera to the fence-mounted binoculars with the egret in frame as the battery died! The picture above was just the phone shakely held!

My 3rd time finding this grand egret species in Cramlington...

The week that was...

It's been a great week for birding - both locally and further afield. The roller-coaster that birding can be sometimes...

2 county ticks for me - an overdue purple heron and county first: 1s male collared flycatcher

County bird of the year?

A selection of smashing year-ticks: surf scoter, king eider, white-billed diver, black throated diver, ptarmigan, capercaillie, crested tit, golden eagle, great white egret.

Some great birds at West Hartford too! ~ black-tailed godwit, little ringed plover, ringed plover, wood sandpiper... whatever next?

Great encounter with Ptarmigan on Cairngorm

Eight Osprey seen during Highlands visit

Obliging king eider - a stunning sea duck

Pristine great-white egret

The journey home...

Great White Egret / 100-400mm Lens

Arrived back in the north-east yesterday evening after an enjoyable weekend further north - more on that later.

First port of call wast East Chevington, where an eventual catch up with the adult purple heron provided a long awaited county tick for me - another relative blocker un-blocked (cattle egret being the other earlier in the year).

The heron was on the south pool, concealed very well in the front of the reed bed - for a colourful bird they can be darn tricky to pick out! Eventually the heron lifted and flew to a better area for viewing.

A few whimbrel were in adjacent fields and a cracking male yellow wagtail.

Further north, the great white egret performed well at Hauxley. Initially bathing between the weir and the wader hide, it flew back towards the southern edge of  the reserve after some prolonged preening.

From the wader hide I was surprised to find the egret on the right hand side in the corner that the greater yellowlegs and grey phalarope had frequented a couple of years back - the egret was no more than 5 meters away!

With the hide windows all closed I rattled off a few record shots - not ideal but in hindsight the correct decision - as soon as the click of the window lock was undone the egret lifted again and dropped onto the adjacent shore.

Bizarrely this is the second time I've had both purple heron and great white egret on the same day - it happened a few years back on Teesside too.

With a hire car to return Mark and I headed off, and after his drop off a quick look at West Hartford produced (the tipped off by GM) black tailed godwit and ringed plover.

Quite a day - which started with capercaillie at 05:30!

Double Vision...

After reading Phils' tales of short-eared owl at West Hartford last night I thought I'd try my luck this evening. Sure enough the SEO made an appearance, so after nipping back to the car for the camera gear I returned to my roadside vantage point and found that the bird had gone to ground. Nothing unusual here, as SEO can disappear for periods inbetween feeding - so I waited.

Annoyingly, at about 17:55 my owl attention was diverted as a suspicious white head popped up out of the ponds reedy edge... and after a moment of uncertainty, there it was - my second Cramlington great-white egret. No longer treated to capital letters on the pager, this is still a rare egret 'oop north, so I quickly got the news out via phone call and text. Given the birds position (south-east corner of pool), I advised all to join me at the roadside so not to disturb.

Phil was the first to arrive - he'd dipped the last two records, and as he headed back to his folks car to let them know I'd give him a lift back, out popped egret number 2 - amazing!!!

Gordon arrived soon after, all suited up I might add, along with a few speedy others. Good move, as with all two other Cramlington records, the pair soon headed off north west as dusk set in.

As with the Arcot bird that I found 2 years ago - I had the camera, but the birds were way too distant - so it's record shots only... here goes...

One...

...Two

And they're off...

You might be able to make out that one bird (the first seen) had an almost completely yellow bill, while the second almost completely black - different rates of breeding condition?

Previous Cramlington records were both, weirdly at Arcot Pond on April 25th - 1 for a few minutes in 2009, and the other, a flyover in 2010...

Reduced Weekend

Overtime on Friday night resulted in my weekend starting at 06:00 on Saturday morning. The drive home in the dark was lightened somewhat by a barn owl near the Seaton Burn roundabout - perched on top of a road sign.

After some catch-up sleep and bad bass playing I headed to West Hartford at dusk - owl activity was not as good as late, and it took till almost dark for a single barn owl to be picked up on the far fence line.

Sunday was a lethargic day - a mixed-up body clock got me out of bed for 04:45... so all the ironing was done by 07:00. After a bit of exercise in the morning (with approx 10 waxwings en-route)  I headed north to Alnwick to try and see the obliging great-white egret that had been frequenting the river below the castle.

There had already been negative news late morning, so it was with no real great surprise that the trip was unsuccessful - I should have been there earlier -  see the great account and pictures on Stewarts blog. A single grey heron was as close as it got, but the view of the castle was worth the trip, along with a good chat with Richard and John.

The journey home was just ahead of the blackening clouds, so with haste I took another quick look at the squacco heron in Morpeth. What a fantastic bird this is - and it is still drawing an admirer or two... even a couple of old stinking drunks stopped to have a look between pubs!

Took a few images, none of which really did the job ~ with an ISO rating of 800 I was shooting with an exposure of 1/40th... it was rather dark! I like the colours on the one below;

West Hartford was a convenient stop-off at dusk. A single barn owl perched on the fence line near the farm was picked up immediately, while the only other birds around were one kestrel and a carrion crow!

Darkness arrives earlier and earlier - it's a week f early shift ahead, so hopefully I'll squeeze a bit of birding inbetween home time & teatime...

***

On a literary note I've started reading the very excellent book by Chris Gooddie ~ "The Jewel Hunter": a quest to see all of the worlds pitta species in a single year (and I was pleased with three in a morning last year!). Three chapters in and I'm hooked!

Little and Large

above - great white egret, Druridge. Click the images for sharper versions...

With a bright start to the day, and no news on the Cleveland black-throated thrush, I headed back to Druridge for another look at the great white egret. Today the egret was settled on the western side of the Budge field - nice for watching but not brilliant for photography. The hopes for the egret to be hassled into coming closer to the hide by the resident grey heron did not materialise, so the attached images are with the 500mm and 2.0 extender. Not ideal, but better than yesterday I guess. This particular bird is good plumage, with ample plumes showing.

Good showing of plumes... pity the light had gone!

Waders today were represented by lapwing, oystercatcher and snipe, while numbers of black-headed gull were high. Near the hide a male reed bunting was vocal and a chiffchaff passed through the willows. Two sand martin made a brief appearance before heading off north.

above - oystercatcher

below - lapwing

As the morning progressed the light faded as cloud cover increased and the temperature dropped. Glad I left my coat in the car....

On the journey home I (at long last) managed to connect with little owl - easily over looked - they don't half blend in with the tree as they sit motionless!

above - little owl

(r) Egrets? I've had a few...

Made a mistake by not going out until the afternoon today, by which time the sun had been immersed by a huge heavy rain cloud, and all the decent light had gone for the day. Still, the two main species seen on the trip out were pretty good by Northumberland standards, with the great white egret at Warkworth Lane (record shot below, the light killed this photo... if I'd got my skates on I could have faired better at the Budge field...) and the adult common crane remaining just north of Eshott.

News of a black-throated thrush in Cleveland was tempting... maybe Northumberland will score too?

Arcot 2 - West Hartford 0

A text message from STH yesterday evening lightened up what had been a relatively dull evening.

Steve had just found an adult little egret at Arcot. Nationally not very significant, county-wise good and Cramlington-wise, MEGA!! A great find and long awaited addition to the Cramlington list. As good a record as it is, it's even more remarkable to think that Arcot has scored for two egret species within a month!

The little egret was, like the great white, made most unwelcome by the grey heron frequenting the pool - after a brief chase around the pool the little egret flew up and landed in the trees to the west of the pool - to roost? Nah,to get a better view of it's escape route - it flew high east at about 20.40...

I always thought that West Hartford would be the place to find an egret - I've been proven wrong twice now!

Patch birding - great stuff!

Gripping Gropper

Prior to the arrival and brief stay of the great white egret I had been treated to some fantastic views of "reeling" grasshopper warbler in the scrub that surrounds Arcot Pond.

This particular bird was "reeling" (singing - it's song is very much like the sound of a fishing reel being wound) out in the open, sitting on brambles.

As the bird sang it would flutter its wings and bob its' tail - cracking!

Today was perfect - warm, sunny and still. Four birds were heard along with two lesser whitethroat, one common whitethroat, two sedge warbler, blackcap, willow warbler and chiffchaff.

Summer has finally arrived in Northumberland.

After the GWE had departed we stuck around for a bit chat with several local birders who had arrived a few minutes late - luckily for us the drake garganey flew out of the reeds and onto the pool - only my second in Cramlington, so a great record and a magic end to an amazing morning at the pond!