Gateshead Egrets & Cleveland Whiskered Tern

As expected,  I pointed the car south today, picking up Mark prior to a quick stop-off at Cousin Robs' former patch to see the four little egret that had arrived earlier in the week.

Part of a mini-invasion to the region these four represent the first record for Shibton Pond and birds 2 - 5 for the Gateshead area (a colour ringed bird on the River Derwent has also been recorded recently - it was a juv from Norfolk that had been recorded at Bishop Middleham previously).

So a good start, albeit if the birds were un co-operative photograph wise, choosing to roost on the island throughout our visit. A lone barnacle goose looked thoroughly out of place with the canada goose flock.

Teesside was the next destination, and in true form I've continued my inability to photograph whiskered tern in the UK... This was my 4th encounter but my first juvenile, having seen adults at Pennington Flash (Greater Manchester), Lound (Notts) and three at Swillington Ings (Dipping collared pratincole, North Yorks).

Got out the car at the reclaimation pond, climbed the bank and promptly had the bird fly low over our heads off to to Saltholme. At Saltholme the bird was roosting distantly on the west pond, so we took opportunity for a cooked breakfast at the visitor centre.

Upon our return we discovered that the tern was back on the reclaimation pool, so that's where we headed. Good but distant views continued as the tern fed over the water (in company with a 1s little gull), and eventually the bird came in close - one unsatisfactory soft focus shot on approach (above) then I was completely unable to achieve focus lock on the camera as it drifted slowly over our heads again.... grrr!!!, much cursing followed.

The tern then settled distantly onto Dormans Pool - and with that we moved on - this was not going to be a good day for rarity images!

Saltholme was quiet - one little egret, a few black-tailed godwit,  a yellow wagatil and not much else of note. Greatham Creek was both spotted redshank and avocetless... and with that we headed back to Northumberland.

Purple haze

It was another glorious sunny day in the North-east, and after a late breakfast I headed south to the new RSPB reserve at Saltholme to try and see the immature purple heron that had arrived on the previous Friday.


Upon arrival I was pointed in the direction of the Haverton viewpoint - a raised mound south of Haverton Hole pools. (This part of the reserve isn't complete yet, hence a delay in releasing news of the heron).

Purple heron can be tricky, spending long periods in reed beds out of sight - luckily for me I only had to wait for about 40 minutes before it made the first of several reedbed edge visits - good viewing but not very close for photographs (200m?) - record shots were the best on offer today - heat haze was also an issue!. The bird was watched by a good crowd, maybe up to fifty at any one time - purple heron is a very rare species north of the Humber.

Perhaps one disadvantage of the reserve at Saltholme is is proximity to some rather unsavory characters, and sure enough by mid afternoon the cast of "Shameless" arrived to spoil the birding. A "flock" of about thirty arrived, including both juveniles and sub-adults and some hybrids of sorts, led by Frank Gallagher himself, complete with plastic chairs... "this is our pool* (*er, it's not, I think the RSPB will disagree...) so sorry like.." and they proceeded to wade out into the pool for some water based activity (they did have a dinghy too, so were well prepared).






So the birders dispersed back into the main reserve, and the purple heron was flushed, heading into the deeper part of the reedbed to the east of the pool (So we all got a flight view at least!)

As the police arrived to move the riff-raff, I headed to the sanctuary of the reserve visitor centre where coffee and cake was much enjoyed - I'll be back for sure. Need a morning visit as the birders breakfast sounds very nice indeed!

Next stop was Greatham Creek, where avocet have had a good year - from the roadside I could see at least 10 adults and three juvs'... Northumberland next?