Blyth White Wings

It was another bright winter afternoon so I headed down to Blyth South Harbour where two iceland gull have recently been frequenting. Initial scanning of the harbour did not produce much, only a few herring, great black back and black-headed gull, long with a single red-breasted merganser and up to twenty eider. Feeling a bit despondent I started to work my way back from the harbour master building and quickly picked up an apparent immature iceland gull in flight - great! Moving closer to the area where the bird was I was surprised to find BB... photographing it on the water (initial reaction was that this was a glauc, bill was very two-tone... see Northumbrian birding blog to see why its' an iceland, a great advert for digital photography in use while birding) Not much later a second bird arrive, both lingered, allowing several photographs to be taken, although the light soon became tricky as the sun began to set. One bird was distinctly browner toned than the other, I expect this is down to individual wear, tear and bleaching through the birds life-cycle.

Barn Owl & Bittern

I finished work by two this afternoon, so after a quick cup of coffee and a change of clothes I headed north to Druridge Bay.

Druridge Pool was quiet, although I did bump into a chap who had just seen a bittern fly south along the ditch near the budge screen. Cresswell Pond was more productive, with three whooper swan in fields to the north of the pool, a barn owl hunting over the dunes, water rail on the pool edge and a quick view of bittern dropping into the reeds near to the hide at dusk (how many bittern are in the bay this winter?). Coupled with some chat with AC (essential travel tips) and BB, a very nice afternoon was had.

For the photo-buffs out there, all images of the barn owl were taken at dusk with a Canon 1DIII & 500mm IS, handheld @ ISO1000... Still lovin' that camera...!

Thunderbirding

It's been a week of nightshift - so little birding (if any at all) over the past few days. The cold weather has not done much for my garden birds - only the hardy collard dove, robin and blackbird have been visiting the feeder. All the House Sparrows have disappeared.

In the time between getting up in the afternoon and heading off to work for the night I've spent some time working on bird photographs from the recent Hawaii trip - I fear it'll take a while to complete this selection. I've also been planning future trips for 2009 - April will see me heading off to Thailand and probably Iona for corncrake, with August still to be confirmed.

I've also taken delivery of this cracker - an epiphone thunderbird IV bass!!! I'll apologise in advance to my neighbours... maybe.

This morning twenty waxwing flew over the house, so maybe things are looking better. I must get out more...

Water on the shore

A quick morning visit to the north beach at St Mary's produced some nice views of the wintering water pipit that was feeding with some very tame rock pipit. A single grey wagtail was thrown in for good measure. Otherwise quiet, no sign of the two brent geese that have frequented the area recently.

A cold forecast for the weekend...

End

Here are the final San Francisco images from the trip... I might finally get out and do some proper UK birding now.

The house finch popped up in front of us while watching golden-crowned sparrow at the yatch club - a very dapper bird.

The red-shouldered hawk was, presumably like me, was dipping varied thrush in the Strybing arboretum in Golden Gate Park.

The black phoebe was near the rose garden in Golden Gate Park and was one of the final images taken on the trip. The walk in the park was quite productive, with townsend's warbler, hermit thrush, american wigeon, red-tailed hawk, common yellow throat, chestnut-backed chickadee and pygmy nuthatch also noted. I had hoped for a few more duck species, but I suspect the weather was too nice to draw them in for food hand-outs.

All in all a great end to a winter trip - roll on the next one...

Calypte Anna

I'll finish today's posting with a couple of photographs of one of my favorite Californian species - anna's hummingbird. They're delightfully colourful and incredibly hardy. In particular, I love the way that a male bird can transform from an aparant "black-throated" bird to a vibrant red-pink iridescent throated bird with the turn of it's head - amazing!

These two birds were photographed near Crissy Fields on 9th January 2009 and were very vocal as they dashed around their business.

Pacific Surf

A walk along the San Francisco harbour front area to Crissy Fields produced some very close viewing of pacific birdlife - including these two fellas' here.

I was lucky enough to see the first UK pacific diver on an old quarry in Yorkshire a few years ago - unfortunately I saw it within a couple of hours of the news being released, so viewing was from a distant roadside prior to the landowners giving permission to view (for a ten quid parking fee) from the waters edge. My twitch companion Mark was boozing abroad at the time, so when he arrived back the following weekend I was able to head back down the road again for another go... annoyingly we had just passed Darlington when the pager informed of the diver flying off high!! So that was the end of that... In San Francisco there were several birds off-shore, the bird photographed here was one of two feeding among the moorings of yachts. Great views and a fantastic opportunity to see the chin-strap up close.

The surf scoter was also feeding among the moorings, I just love the orange on the multi-coloured bill and the piercing eye!

Glaucous-winged Gull

Pity this wasn't taken in Cleveland, UK..... I had some moderate success with this species on the trip, with birds noted at Santa Monica, an immature on Hawaii (where any gull species is rare) and several in San Francisco. This adult, was photographed in San Francisco on the waterfront on 9th January 2009; it superficially resembles the bird that was in Cleveland at the very same time - heavily streaked head of winter adult with nice grey primaries and bright pink legs. For those regular readers of this blog you may well have noted that this species was predicted to turn up this winter way back in November (see this post) - however, it had a bit of a cheek to do so when I was out of the UK!! (I dipped it twice upon return...) Nevertheless, a great species that I expect to become available again in the UK... I hope!

Two Sparrows

Golden-crowned sparrow was a new species for me on this trip, and prove to be fairly numerous on our walk to Crissy Fields, with others seen in Golden Gate Park. I like the yellow on it's forecrown, a nice tough on what is relatively a dull coloured bird! This species was often in mixed flocks of white-crowned and song sparrow.

The song sparrow was photographed at Crissy Fields - I've a bit of a soft spot for photographs of birds on rusty wire fences (see below, yellow-rumped warbler...), very "rustic"?... maybe not!

Two Warblers

It was a return to cooler temperatures in San Francisco, our final destination of this trip. Featured here are two warbler species: yellow-rumped and orange crowned.

The yellow-rumped warbler was photographed at Crissy Fields, and was a common species in SF. A tricky species to photograph as they were very active feeding in the low coastal bushes - I struck lucky here when one bird landed on the fencing as I was waiting for a black phoebe to return.

The orange-crowned warbler was feeding under Fort Mason and was very inconspicuous. Not the best photograph as the light was poor in the undergrowth. Above us several red-masked parakeet were squabbling, quite a bizarre sight on a grey January morning!

Birding Honolulu

....Airport. We had a relatively short lay over in Honolulu on the island of O'ahu, made much more tolerable due to the presence of a rather nice garden area within the terminal. In the time between disembarking our picturesque Hawaiian Airlines flight (great views of the other islands!) and giving in to one more Kona Brewary beer and steak I managed another three species for the holiday list:

Red-crested cardinal - similar to the yellow-billed seen on the Big Island, a few of these birds were feeding on the lawn area. This species was introduced in 1930 from South America.

Two bulbul species were seen - red-vented and red-whiskered. Of the two species, red-vented appeared more dominant in the pecking order and was observed chasing the red-whiskered on several occasions. RVB was introduced from Asia in the mid 1950's while RWB was introduced around 1965.

In addition to the new species there were a couple of spotted dove, zebra dove, Japanese white-eye, house sparrow, java sparrow and common myna.

It's Over...

Here's a final selection of photographs from the Big Island.

Black-crowned night heron ('auku'u) is the only native heron in Hawaii and was abundant in the resort area. This particular bird was in very good plumage - I love the vibrant legs!

Green sea turtles were often found on the shore, especially during the afternoon - close inspection revealed scoured marks all over their heads - I assume this is from the largely volcanic rocks being sharp edged (the turtles seemed quite happy to doze on the rocks as well as the limited sandy beach).

Zebra dove, native to Asia, were introduced in 1922. This species, along with spotted dove, were commonly observed throughout our stay. Birds were often in small flocks and would readily associate with sparrows and finches feeding on the hotel lawns.

Yellow-billed cardinal was one of three cardinal species to be seen on the trip. This species is native to South America and was introduced to the Kona coast in 1973.

So that's all from the Big Island, a truly wonderful place.... time for an island hop en-route to San Francisco

Bristle-thighed Curlew

Bird of the trip for me, this bristle-thighed curlew was delightfully confiding. I found this bird on an afternoon shore-line walk... and admit that my language was a little blue as I scrambled to attach a tele converter to the 500mm lens prior to getting my first record photographs. As it turned out no tele convertor was needed - this bird was fearless and would frequently walk past at an un-focusable distance. I was fortunate enough to have several sessions with this bird.

This bird was very entertaining to watch feeding - chasing crabs around rock pools (literally), then bashing them on rocks to enable swallow-able chunks to be devoured!

Bristle-thighed curlew breed locally in the tundra of west Alaska and winters among Pacific islands, it is more common in the north-west Hawaiian islands but is considered rare on the main Hawaiian islands. It's unique among waders as it is flightless during moult - perhaps a reason why there are only approximatley 7,000 left...