Spuggies

I was lured out on the push bike late morning, for what was a cold hour.

Headed down to Blyth to check the pink footed goose flock - rewarded with a single immature white-front (assumed to be the bird from Woodhorn in February). Not able to pick any bean out - need a scope for that!

The unexpected highlight was the discovery of a small flock of tree sparrow at the Laverock Hall Farm - my first in almost 30 years of birding Cramlington, right on the border mind!!

Fronts, feet, bits and a nun.

First stop up the coast was Woodhorn - a large flock of pink-feet contained a 1w white-front and a single barnacle. Further back, the grey-lag flock contained four Greenland white-fronts - assumed to be the returning birds.

Cresswell was fairly quiet, though a glimpse of the bittern was useful, if somewhat unsatisfactory.

The chip-stop at Amble was a joyous affair, while East Chevington eventually gave up the female smew - cryptically lurking on one of the distant islands on the north pool.

Quick Potter...

Managed an hour birding this afternoon, with the five white-fronted geese collected south-east of Ashington hospital - only one of which was not sat tight to the ground roosting - a greenland race bird.

QEII eventually provided distant views of the smew pair - it's been a while since I last copped eyes on a "white nun" - distant but appreciated.

West Hartford was bleak - a windswept, cold afternoon mean't a short stay and very little bird-wise.

March is round the corner, so things are looking up!

Gull.goose.duck

Saturday morning dawned reasonably bright, so Mark and I headed up the coast for a casual potter.

First stop was Newbiggin, where four adult and one 2nd Winter Mediterranean gull were readily available. It was cold and cloudy, so I did not venture onto the beach for any photographs - I'll save that for when the adults are developing their black hoods.


At Woodhorn Flash the goose flock was smaller and distinctly white-frontedless, we later found a larger and Greenland white-fronted inclusive flock (the four birds that have been present a week or so now) just north of Woodhorn Church.

Note in the photograph how much smaller than grey-lag geese the white-fronts are, along with the overall darker plumage, orangey bill and thin white trailing edge to the tail. These first winter birds don’t have much in terms of barring on the belly yet and the "white-front" is restricted. Click the image for a bigger and sharper version!

Druridge held three then four smew, including the 1st winter drake – I think this may be the first I’ve seen in this plumage. All four smew kept to the nothern side of the pool, which is a pity. The pools also held wigeon, mallard, teal, goldenye, red-breasted merganser, while overhead the predominantly pink-footed geese flock passed over a couple of times. It transpired later that the tundra bean geese (3) were also in the area today, so it’s feasible that we could have seen these had we looked!

At Blyth we had no luck with the droopy winged 2nd winter Iceland gull, it was reported later in the afternoon, so I’ll try again some other time.

And that was that, bacon and eggs were calling at Birdingsometimes HQ.

Nice to see Northumberland waxwing reports increasing and taiga & tundra bean geese reported in unusually high numbers today. This is proving to be an interesting time…

The Goose Chase

Saturday dawned bright and sunny at Birdingsometimes HQ, so I took the decision to head inland for a potter with some wildfowl. First stop was Whittle Dene, where a female smew had been reported recently. Annoyingly thick fog had failed to clear, and I could barely make out four tufted duck on the lower reservoir, never mind a smew! Next up was Grindon Lough – thankfully void of fog, but also void of Greenland white-fronted geese and tundra bean geese too! A couple of hundred Canada geese were the best that was on offer, with forty common gull to boot. The fog was a bit weird here – while the Lough was fog-free, a chance look from the road just north of Steel Rig on the roman wall (a good spot for the Greenland white-fronts when they’re not on the Lough) was worthless, as visibility was less than ten meters…    Driving past Grindon two fox were noted.


Enough was enough, so I headed back east, via Prestwick Carr and West Hartford. Both were pretty much bird-less, so news of bean goose sp. north of Bell’s Pond was enough to keep me moving. En-route I stopped at Woodhorn for a better look at the four Greenland white-fronted geese … I’m still smarting at my failure to look at them properly last week!

At the bean goose spot I bumped into Steve and Phil, and we spent a pleasant half hour or so scanning the goose flock. Steve eventually picked up the bean goose – it transpired that it was a tundra bird - my first of this bean goose form in the county, ;-). Also present: eight barnacle geese, a heap of pink-footed, several grey-lag and Canada… including a weird pale bodied bird. A small flock of twite were feeding opposite. No chance of photographs today, it was a very dark and grey afternoon. MSH arrived and I continued north with him up to the corner at Druridge in an attempt to get a better look at the tundra bean ~ no joy there, but it was good to catch up with tales of birding and travel.

Steve and Phil had already departed south, and a text confirming the presence of two SEO at West Hartford gave me a pit-stop for the journey back home, but all I could manage was a tribe of long-tailed tit.

And that was that.

White-front revisited

Mike Hodgson got some images of the white-fronted geese at Woodhorn yesterday... the images clearly show that the birds are of the greenland race rather than eurasion. I should have looked more closely on Sunday...

The White-front

Another snowy weekend in the north-east, so Saturday was spent processing some 2009 images of birds in Northumberland. It was nice to reflect on some of the birds seen and photographed, and had I had my wits about me I could have posted some here last December.

This afternoon was spent up the coast, starting with a look at the four eurasion white-fronted geese at Woodhorn - feeding with twenty or so grey-lag geese on fields inbetween the south pool and railway line. EWFG are always good to see up here, more typically I'd see the small flock of greenland birds that frequent the Grindon Lough area (saying that, I do hope to get there this week to catch up on the remarkable flock of 12 tundra bean geese that have joined them recently).

Next up was the Chevingtons - both East and West. None of the target birds were seen, a buzzard was as close as I got at West, and grey heron was the closest at East. The north pool wat East Chevington was ice free and supported a mix of great black-back, herring, common and black-headed gull, along with wigeon, mallard, teal and goldeneye.

Further down the coast at Cresswell the pond was 60% frozen, so the curlew, oystercatcher and redshank were all stood in the middle. A few goldeneye were present with mallard, teal and wigeon, but there was no sign of barn owl, something I had hoped to photograph in the snow.

Cresswell Pond

The coastal road was entertaining to drive on as it was still covered in compact snow - the photographs today illustrate that, with two views at Cresswell and one further down the coast enroute home via Lynemouth (you can see the power station... haunt of the wintering hume's warbler a few years back). We don't see snow on the beaches too often in Northumberland! The curvy nature of some of the pictures is due to the attempt to utilise "panarama" mode on the mobile phones' camera.... it not arty!

South to Lynemouth / Newbiggin