Revisit, Float, Dip.

Popped back to Lynemouth -en-route to Seahouses for an attempt at Serin, a County mega. 

Citrine Wagtail still performing well... images here are from Friday though.

Meanwhile on the Farnes... no sign of the Serin, but plenty of these fellas'

Afterwork...

Incredible views... more images later.

Glossed over

Another day, another trip up the coast.

Newbiggin was the first port of call, and after yesterdays failure to connect with Mediterranean Gull, today was better, with four easily available from the comfort of the car.

The Woodhorn goose flock remains unchecked, as traffic works prevented use of the lay-by - hopefully the Greenland White-fronted will hang on.

Lynemouth provided much better views of the Glossy Ibis - sunshine and a closer bird. No proper camera today, so an iPhone held to the scope for a record shot.

Lynemouth Glossy

Cresswell wasn't really checked as it was a pitstop for a quick chat with Alan, and later at Druridge the Green-winged Teal could not be seen. Compensation came in the form of three Pintail, half a dozen Shoveler, lots of Wigeon and Eurasian Teal.

Arrived at East Chevington along with Peter and spent the next hour or so hoping for the Bearded Tit / Bittern to show. Neither appeared.

I picked up the Green-winged Teal roosting on the north pool, and other duck included three Long-tailed, a Common Scoter, more Eurasian Teal, Wigeon, Shoveler, Goldeneye, Mallard and Pochard. The Grey-lag Geese group held the presumed escape Lesser White-fronted Goose. Two Whooper Swan lurked in the north-west corner too.

As darkness fell, the murmuration of Starling began - very impressive indeed!

Seeing red, red, red, & not seeing red.

Suitably refreshed from the difficult early morning visit to West Hartford, Mark and I headed north on a planned casual potter in the search of migrants. However, the day was not as straight forward as it had initially seemed.None of that "look for our own birds" lark, its much easier to go and see what others have put effort in for!

So Lynemouth was our first stop, and two very nice red-rumped swallow were pointed out over the sewage works (found by Ian I believe - nice one).

Pretty much always distant the two overshoots were mixed in with healthy numbers of sand martin, house martin and barn swallow. A county tick for Mark, so a great start.

We had one brief close flypast, and all I could manage was a record shot of the bird veering off... not as photogenic as the Wallsend Swallow Pond bird a few years back...

There was some interesting conversation about antics at another site earlier in the morning. Suffice to say the culprit remains blissfully uneducated.

Next up, more watching birds that others had found. A cracking male whinchat near Cresswell was a year tick, while garaganey continue to elude.

Further north still, a stunning male red-backed shrike near Hauxley gave distant views but was much appreciated by all.

Chips consumed at Amble then up the coast for the final "red"... not so lucky this time the red-spotted bluethroat at Football Hole had last been seen a couple of hours before our arrival, no doubt disturbed by a horse or perhaps tresspassing tape wielding idio,,,,, whatever....