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!

Purple haze

It was another glorious sunny day in the North-east, and after a late breakfast I headed south to the new RSPB reserve at Saltholme to try and see the immature purple heron that had arrived on the previous Friday.


Upon arrival I was pointed in the direction of the Haverton viewpoint - a raised mound south of Haverton Hole pools. (This part of the reserve isn't complete yet, hence a delay in releasing news of the heron).

Purple heron can be tricky, spending long periods in reed beds out of sight - luckily for me I only had to wait for about 40 minutes before it made the first of several reedbed edge visits - good viewing but not very close for photographs (200m?) - record shots were the best on offer today - heat haze was also an issue!. The bird was watched by a good crowd, maybe up to fifty at any one time - purple heron is a very rare species north of the Humber.

Perhaps one disadvantage of the reserve at Saltholme is is proximity to some rather unsavory characters, and sure enough by mid afternoon the cast of "Shameless" arrived to spoil the birding. A "flock" of about thirty arrived, including both juveniles and sub-adults and some hybrids of sorts, led by Frank Gallagher himself, complete with plastic chairs... "this is our pool* (*er, it's not, I think the RSPB will disagree...) so sorry like.." and they proceeded to wade out into the pool for some water based activity (they did have a dinghy too, so were well prepared).






So the birders dispersed back into the main reserve, and the purple heron was flushed, heading into the deeper part of the reedbed to the east of the pool (So we all got a flight view at least!)

As the police arrived to move the riff-raff, I headed to the sanctuary of the reserve visitor centre where coffee and cake was much enjoyed - I'll be back for sure. Need a morning visit as the birders breakfast sounds very nice indeed!

Next stop was Greatham Creek, where avocet have had a good year - from the roadside I could see at least 10 adults and three juvs'... Northumberland next?