Little

Little Gulls prove to be the highlight today, with an adult and first winter off Briardene and an adult at Tynemouth Haven.

Today's sea was spectacular, and made up for little in terms of additions to the "yearlist" - no sign of the black redstart at the foot of Tynemouth Pier, but the odd purple sandpiper in the area to stop and look at.

Fading light prevented any further birding, and it'll be a few days before I get the chance to resume...

The small biggie.

A quiet June for me -  predominanly lacking luck:

Great Reed Warbler - dipped on the flowing morning
Black-winged Pratincole - like many, arrived in the Bay to late.

Highlights? Few and far between - The Great White Egret at Hauxley was nice (along with the weird goose assemblage), local Bearded Tit, Spoonbills, Little Egrets, Barn Owls and Little Gulls all nice.

Strangely the "biggie" was a "little-y" - after the fluke trip to Manchester last month coinciding with the Elton Reservoir Little Bittern, this morning saw me on vigil at Gosforth Park, a few mere miles from home watching, albeit brief, another fine male Little Bittern flying access the lake.


No smell of roses at Byker, I failed to locate the rose-coloured starling mid morning... perhaps it will be re-located.

Little Snow

But still enough to be a pain, so much for Spring....

Took the bike down to a raw feeling Blyth this afternoon, it was high tide with a rough sea, so the relative sanctuary of the harbour was to be the birding destination. And jolly good it was too.

Four little gull continue to show extremely well between the piers - with the feeding taking place only yards away I wish I had troubled myself to bring the SLR down... but no, the bike list demands light travel, so the new Powershot was taken.

Flight photography is very tricky when using the LCD screen, so I took many a "part" little gull and a heap of blurred images in the difficult windy conditions.

One record shot;

More obliging for the point and click was the snow bunting - nicely pointed out by Brian.

On the little beach between the piers a few waders fed - sanderling, turnstone and one purple sandpiper.

Gateshead Egrets & Cleveland Whiskered Tern

As expected,  I pointed the car south today, picking up Mark prior to a quick stop-off at Cousin Robs' former patch to see the four little egret that had arrived earlier in the week.

Part of a mini-invasion to the region these four represent the first record for Shibton Pond and birds 2 - 5 for the Gateshead area (a colour ringed bird on the River Derwent has also been recorded recently - it was a juv from Norfolk that had been recorded at Bishop Middleham previously).

So a good start, albeit if the birds were un co-operative photograph wise, choosing to roost on the island throughout our visit. A lone barnacle goose looked thoroughly out of place with the canada goose flock.

Teesside was the next destination, and in true form I've continued my inability to photograph whiskered tern in the UK... This was my 4th encounter but my first juvenile, having seen adults at Pennington Flash (Greater Manchester), Lound (Notts) and three at Swillington Ings (Dipping collared pratincole, North Yorks).

Got out the car at the reclaimation pond, climbed the bank and promptly had the bird fly low over our heads off to to Saltholme. At Saltholme the bird was roosting distantly on the west pond, so we took opportunity for a cooked breakfast at the visitor centre.

Upon our return we discovered that the tern was back on the reclaimation pool, so that's where we headed. Good but distant views continued as the tern fed over the water (in company with a 1s little gull), and eventually the bird came in close - one unsatisfactory soft focus shot on approach (above) then I was completely unable to achieve focus lock on the camera as it drifted slowly over our heads again.... grrr!!!, much cursing followed.

The tern then settled distantly onto Dormans Pool - and with that we moved on - this was not going to be a good day for rarity images!

Saltholme was quiet - one little egret, a few black-tailed godwit,  a yellow wagatil and not much else of note. Greatham Creek was both spotted redshank and avocetless... and with that we headed back to Northumberland.

Chevington

I spent a couple of hours at East Chevington on Monday afternoon - just after a little egret had met it's demise on the south pool - all that was left was a lifeless heap of white feathers on the mud near top corner. Good start eh!

On the south pool (and still alive) were plenty of lapwing, three bar-tailed godwit, 2+ greenshank, 5 dunlin, 1 common sandpiper plus plenty of black-headed gull and a few grey heron.

The north pool was busier - two 1s little gull, plenty of arctic/common and sandwich tern, 12 knot (one colour ringed - white on right, red/green(flag)/yellow on left.) ringed plover, cormorant and most surprisingly - a single brent goose... winter is here already??? The presence of reed warbler and grasshopper suggested it may still be summer.

Looking forward to the pace picking up soon...

Again no photographs... I'm sure I caught my camera trying to ring the Samaritans to talk about abandonment...

Quick video clip below is of a new cure show soon to be released... Paris 2008. Bit like my July birding... it's never enough.

Doolittle Birding

Friday afternoon, another week of work over... excellent!

Thursday was bright and sunny - so a trip to East Chevington was called for during the afternoon. On the north pool a single roseate tern roosted amongst the common, arctic and sandwich tern and four 1s little gull were pottering about. Water levels continue to drop, so hopefully late July will attract plenty of waders.

At Hauxley the main bird species of interest was the appearance of two drake scaup ... otherwise it was fairly quiet (albeit noisy with all the juv BHGs' and grey-lags!). A few wigeon have returned and most of the grey heron were in odd sun-bathing poses!

Hopefully the weekend will provide opportunity to get out and about... possibly even take a photograph or two?

Highlight for me so far today is the purchase of tickets to see the Pixies at Brixton in October. Loved this band first time round, but only saw them once (Preston 1990)... so could not resist this opportunity to see them again, especially as they'll be performing the whole of the Doolittle album for it's 20th anniversary!

Here's a clip (co-incidentally from Brixton, 1991, Black Francis is somewhat thinner here than today...) - check out the crowd after about 33 seconds!

and... they've sold out... nice!

East Chevington

A potter up the coast on Monday 22nd was relativley quiet, albeit for East Chevington, where the north pool is finally exposing some mud. 21 1st summer little gull dominated the proceedings, with a single adult roseate tern among the sandwich, common and arctic tern resting below the south hide. Nine grey heron patrolled the south pool, while offshore a large raft of common scoter were beyond the burn mouth and small parties of puffin steamed to and from Coquet Island.

Gull in the sun...

Saturday was a cold grey day in the north-east of England, and birding was rather un-rewarding in the south-east of the county, indeed the highlight of the venture to Killingworth Lake and St Mary's with Mark was, unpredictably, chips and curry sauce.

Sunday fared better - the sun was out. Joy.

After a wake up session at the gym I headed back to Killingworth Lake for another hour or two with the little gull.

As with previous visits this bird was flighty and erratic - disappearing for periods of time then whizzing past on the foray for insects over the pond surface.

The sunlight really helped enhance the plumage of the gull - the underparts are a delightful pinkish wash.

Photographs today were taken using a 100-400mm IS lens - it prove to be ideal in the bright sunshine, and nice and light to hand hold.

Round Two

Another grey day, another trip to Killingworth Lake. Still not getting the ideal little gull image, here's the best of a bad bunch. Plenty mute swan though!

Time to Kill(ingworth)

The past couple of mornings have seen me head down to Killingworth Lake for a bit of camera practice with the 400mm f4 DO and the 580 flash. Wednesday saw thick mist and three common tern at the lake, while this morning, although grey skies predominated, was a bit better but tern-less. In their absence was the occasional visit from a splendid little gull which managed to come into photographable range only once - here's a sample image, I think there will be better but have not had time to sort through the folder yet...

Sand martins were also present and prove to be very difficult to capture in the optimum pose.