Very productive stint on the patch

By national standards a pager message of 4 little stint at West Hartford would be largely ignored. However, on a patch scale, 4 little stint at West Hartford (or anywhere in Cramlington for that matter) is MEGA!

Steve and Phil had sent a text not long after three to advise of their presence - so after a quick assembly of camera and bins I was off, and soon was enjoying my second record of little stint in Cramlington (the last being a single bird in Spring 2004, also at WH).

Flighty and keeping to the west edge of the promising looking pool the stints were a great sight. Images here are with the 500mm & 2.0 extender - so records at best!

"Flighty" is probably a good link to the next species that was on offer. After hearing them in Spring 2010, the next species encountered was very much unexpected. In fact it surpassed the stints!

Remarkably we had  a single quail, not once, but twice (or thrice if you're Steve and Phil)... in flight, calling.

What next?!

Pit pil-it...

This evenings visit to West Hartford was enlightened by the presence of a new Cramlington bird species...


Quail!


A single bird was initially heard singing from the A192 near the West Hartford farm buildings... then Gordon called to say he could hear one, if not two from the road end to the east of the pools!

A Cramlington birders "semi-twitch" ensued, resulting in a count of 2 to 4 birds singing.

All the birds can easily be heard from the roadside / business park road. There is no need to walk into the fields. If you walk in the field you will not see them, so don't bother!!!! (Please, there is enough hassle for the breeding reed bunting, sky lark, meadow pipit, grey partridge etc from the fox and dog walkers that frequent the area... size 10 boots need not venture on a fruitless mission......)

A great result for the patch.

A great start to the weekend.

Saturday morning update: Already the infamous mp3 player has been and failed. Why bother????