Overworkedwetpaintedandunderbirded

Life remains complicated, with ovetime at work to tempting to miss, and home improvements in progress...

Managed a quick cycle to West Hartford last night, where hundreds of common gull bathed prior to roost. Lesser numbers of bh, h and lbbg accompanied them, but none of the hope for little or med could be picked up.

1 greenshank dropped in briefly, while a single female type wheatear lifted from the path as I made my way back to HQ.

With the sharpie in Teesside (last years bird returning?), things are looking up. Just need to get Saturdays shift at work out the way and home furnishings back into newly painted rooms before birding can re-commence....

2010 - Review July - December

July 2010 was enlightened with a self-found Cramlington tick - a cracking hobby that ended up spending a week or so touring West Hartford, Arcot and probably Wallsend Swallow Pond. The image above was taken at Arcot, when the hobby spent and hour or so hawking insects over the pool. A cuckoo was also seen during the visit, my first in Cramlington since the early 1990s'!

The first part of August had been spent in Malaysia on a fantastic trip taking in Kuala Lumpur, the Cameron Highlands and Pangkor Laut. Many a good bird was seen, but it was upon my return when the star of August appeared - in the plain, unassuming form of syke's warbler at Hadston!

Another month, another tick - September provided what is probably destined to be my last UK newbie for 2010 ~  a distant sharp-tailed sandpiper in Cleveland. A bit of a quickie this one, with a quick visit prior to a late-shift at work. I managed to miss the good fall of September 2010, so I was lucky to be able to get the most significant bird of the month.

I visited Cleveland again in September to see the obliging woodchat shrike at Hartlepools' Croft Park...

October 2010 was great - with a steady stream of rare's brightening up the north east coast. I make no apology for another slice of the St Mary's red-flanked bluetail - a stunner!

So November came, dark nights descended on the north and birding became limited ~ Waxwing arrived in great numbers and a squacco heron spent it's last days on the unlikely setting of the River Wansbeck in Morpeth town centre. Bird of the month for me was the woodlark on Inner Farne. A tricky bird to catch up with in Northumberland, this was a county tick for most of the hardy souls who made the crossing at the end of November.

December arrived somewhat early this year ~ time flies and birding for me was very limited. The bittern at Cresswell is probably the highlight, tho I suspect there may be some more interesting species for me to see in the last few days...

(un-sharp) Sharp-tailed Sandpiper: Composite & Creek

There have not been many images of this weeks sharp-tailed sandpiper from Greatham Creek, Cleveland, so here is another "image" ~ a composite of soft-focus record images taken with two extenders stacked on the 500mm. By no means sharp for a sharp-tail, but suffice to present. Probably. Darker chestnut cap, pale super, pec-like but pec-less, long legged, marked flanks...

View from the watchpoint at Greatham Creek - the sandpiper was feeding on the mud exposed by low tide just right of the staithe, associating with a few dunlin, redshank and the occasional curlew. As can be seen from the image below, the bird was not really that close - the arrow indicates where the sandpiper had been feeding! (The assembled viewers can be seen on the right portion of the mobile-phone "panorama" shot...

Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, Cleveland

Apologies for awful record images, but as this is a UK (and world!) tick for me I can't resist...

Taken this morning just after nine a.m, Phil and I had had an easy drive down to Teesside with little delay from commuters. News came on the pager as we hit the A1185, and a few minutes and a short walk (quick-step) we were enjoying distant views of this sibe mega. Good light provided great scope views, but it was on the edge of reality for the camera - images here are with the 500mm & 2.0 & 1.4 extenders stacked, with high ISO to try and give a reasonable shutter speed. One for digi-scopers me thinks!

You can just about make-out-able on the soft images is the rustier cap, white supercilium. A bit of a pec sand/ruff/dotterel combo... Nice size comparison with redshank, dunlin and curlew too.

All this before a shift at work: perfect!