Scott of the Ant...

..."Arctic" Redpoll, an interesting bird up at Birling Carrs today... this bird has caused a lot of discussion over the last week...


Some images - 500mm & 2.0 extender... rather distant. Missed it on the fence line, and later too distant to photograph when the huge rump patch was fluffed out in the western hedge line.

Note the out of focus splodge on the LHS - Lesser Redpoll to compare tones....

Also present - Lesser Redpoll, 1 Mealy Redpoll (perhaps the "second" bird people may have been observing?), Yellowhammer, Tree Sparrow, Linnet, Reed Bunting, 1 Woodcock, Grey Partridge.

Myrtle Warbler...

Winter Mega!

Woke up to the unexpected news that the County Durham Myrtle Warbler had been confirmed as still present and available to all... so after picking up Phil and Mark it was High Shincliffe bound.

Arrived at 1045, a half hour since the last sighting - we had a frustrating 2 hour wait before the bird was pieced up again - having enjoyed three waxwing, a brambling and redpoll and hods of goldfinch.

Given the circumstances we had decent binocular views as it fed on some feeders concealed in the roadside hedge - not great for the camera (and I only took the 400mm), but some record shots were managed.

Sneaky peak of the yellow rump...

Feeder concealed in dense hedge on roadside

Feeder across road near lamppost - not a bad sized crowd too...

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.

Ring-necked and Long-eared, but no Arctic...

Headed out for my belated first UK birding trip this morning. Picked up Mark at 0800 and by 0845 we were parking up at a cold and wet Cowpen Bewley Woodland Park. In the car park there was a familiar face ~ GM aka The Liver Birder was scoping the bird feeders having already been up to and back from the main site target.

At the pool we met up with John B and James. They had arrived earlier and had the drake ring-necked duck lined up for us nicely. Presumably its the returning drake from last year. Today's views were not as close as last time - the pool is ice free, so the ducks are out towards the back. The rnd was feeding with some tufties, gadwall and coot. The weather deteriorated somewhat so we moved on...

Seal Sands was very quiet, so we quickly retired to the cafe at Saltholme. Suitably refreshed we headed off to see the long-eared owl roost. Only one bird was visible this morning, as can be clearly seen from the photograph below.



Easy, eh?


The remainder of the reserve was quiet - one little egret appeared to be having a chomp at some apples, while the feeding station outside the visitor centre was busy with greenfinch, goldfinch, fieldfare and starling.

The journey north was pit-stopped with my first visit to Rainton Meadow. Today it was possibly the most windswept part of Durham! Sure, we found the redpoll flock, plenty of lesser and mealies... but no clear coue's arctic types. Granted, the flock was mobile, and when feeding many of the birds chose the deck rather than the feeders... may be I'll try again. Siskin and goldfinch spiced up the finch flock on the hillside, while at the visitor centre, chaffinch and bullfinch mixed with great and blue tit.

West Hartford remains bleak (1 grey heron) and the Horton Burn was low on the avian activity front too...