Dot more apt than Spot

Nice to catch up with a spotty Spotted Sandpiper at Hauxley today. Bit distant for the camera, one for digi-scopers.

On the cards

A decent couple of days bird wise, with Gordon's avocet collected late afternoon on Monday - West Hartford's third record, and second of 2013 - maybe a bird that will no longer be unexpected on the patch.

This afternoon after a brief visit to West Hartford I fell prey of the "twitch" urge and headed north for the cracking male red-backed shrike at East Chevington and then the not so great roosting spoonbill nearby at Hauxley.

On the cards? not exactly, although the camera travelled with me, the memory cards did not. So no pictures!

Pah!

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!

Seeing red, red, red, & not seeing red.

Suitably refreshed from the difficult early morning visit to West Hartford, Mark and I headed north on a planned casual potter in the search of migrants. However, the day was not as straight forward as it had initially seemed.None of that "look for our own birds" lark, its much easier to go and see what others have put effort in for!

So Lynemouth was our first stop, and two very nice red-rumped swallow were pointed out over the sewage works (found by Ian I believe - nice one).

Pretty much always distant the two overshoots were mixed in with healthy numbers of sand martin, house martin and barn swallow. A county tick for Mark, so a great start.

We had one brief close flypast, and all I could manage was a record shot of the bird veering off... not as photogenic as the Wallsend Swallow Pond bird a few years back...

There was some interesting conversation about antics at another site earlier in the morning. Suffice to say the culprit remains blissfully uneducated.

Next up, more watching birds that others had found. A cracking male whinchat near Cresswell was a year tick, while garaganey continue to elude.

Further north still, a stunning male red-backed shrike near Hauxley gave distant views but was much appreciated by all.

Chips consumed at Amble then up the coast for the final "red"... not so lucky this time the red-spotted bluethroat at Football Hole had last been seen a couple of hours before our arrival, no doubt disturbed by a horse or perhaps tresspassing tape wielding idio,,,,, whatever....

Legs Eleven

It was a lovely sunny day, so after a relaxed breakfast I headed north to Hauxley for another crack at the greater yellowlegs. Decent views were had, but all were distant as it kept to a limited area on the eastern shore.

Reports of common crane heading south over Warkworth, then attempts to land at Hadston gave enough reason to divert on the way back mid afternoon, but no connection was made. A single brent goose was with the grey-lags on the reclaimed opencast at West Chevington...

Grey Phalarope - early morning on 15th...

Only shot taken on the "dawn raid"...

Dawn Raid

Got to Hauxley prior to 8 this morning - a good move as first three birds (in order) were redshank, greater yellowlegs and grey phalarope! Phew!

Too dark for any pics, but extremely close views from wader hide (unable to focus 500mm lens)

Took some mobile phone video, it may appear here later.

Hope they stick till later in week, as it's a busy day today....

Got home and there were 20 waxwing in the tree outside the house!

North Potter

A sunny afternoon saw me head north to Hauxley, where I stood on the reserve perimeter not hearing or seeing what I had intended to see. Or hear.

Compensation was in the form of a sleepy 2s spoonbill that arrived on the seaward pool. It only raised its' head once as the resident grey-lag geese paraded past ~ suprising how "small" spoonbill are when you see the two species side by side. 1 bar-tailed godwit and three whimbrel were also noted on this rather lazy visit.

Still here!

Working lots. Birding little.

Dipped the East Chevington bridled tern along with everyone else inbetween shifts at work.
Short trip up the coast this morning looking at pools without green sandpiper: Cresswell (quiet) Hauxley (quiet) Amble (chips).

Birding pace should pick up in a few weeks...

Sunny in the bay

Lovely weather again today, pity my trip up the coast was relatively bird-less. No sign of any avocet at Cresswell, no sign of garganey at Druridge nor Hauxley. Instead the highlight was seeing the drake tufted duck/ring-necked duck hybrid at Hauxley (tho' too far away for a photograph), my first 2010 willow warblers and sandwich tern.

The long-tailed tit was at Hauxley. A lively little fella he was too...

Pec? (k)not!

Spent an hour at Hauxley NR this afternoon avoiding packing/trying to see the reported pec sand. As with yesterday, luck was not with me, despite being told it was on view as I approached the hide! Plenty of dunlin (mixed states of moult), plus whimbrel, curlew, redshank, turnstone, greenshank and a colourful knot - which leads me nicely to the next bit!

Ian Fisher has kindly forwarded details of a colour ringed knot that I saw with Tim Cleeves at East Chevington a few weeks ago - here are the details:

colourcode - G5RYWW
date of catch - 09/09/07
location - Simonszand (NL)


Re-sighted at East Chevington on 13/07/09

See this for more details of the ringing project.

Doolittle Birding

Friday afternoon, another week of work over... excellent!

Thursday was bright and sunny - so a trip to East Chevington was called for during the afternoon. On the north pool a single roseate tern roosted amongst the common, arctic and sandwich tern and four 1s little gull were pottering about. Water levels continue to drop, so hopefully late July will attract plenty of waders.

At Hauxley the main bird species of interest was the appearance of two drake scaup ... otherwise it was fairly quiet (albeit noisy with all the juv BHGs' and grey-lags!). A few wigeon have returned and most of the grey heron were in odd sun-bathing poses!

Hopefully the weekend will provide opportunity to get out and about... possibly even take a photograph or two?

Highlight for me so far today is the purchase of tickets to see the Pixies at Brixton in October. Loved this band first time round, but only saw them once (Preston 1990)... so could not resist this opportunity to see them again, especially as they'll be performing the whole of the Doolittle album for it's 20th anniversary!

Here's a clip (co-incidentally from Brixton, 1991, Black Francis is somewhat thinner here than today...) - check out the crowd after about 33 seconds!

and... they've sold out... nice!