Waders and bits at East Chevington

After a failed attempt to get common rosefinch on the county list this morning (Seaton Sluice), I headed to East Chevington for a few hours.

The north pool was very busy, with the main quarry, white-rumped sandpiper on show throughout the visit along with a good variety of waders - 25+ ruff, 10 black-tailed godwit, bar-tailed godwit, dunlin, ringed plover, redshank, lapwing, curlew, 3 little stint, snipe, 1 curlew sandpiper, some fly through sanderling and redshank.

A few pintail were amongst the teal and a single black tern occasionally came down in front of the viewing area.

From the edge of the reed bed the spotted crake continues to show intermittently, but the star of the visit was a suprise bittern that walked along the edge of the eastern shore, crossing the "crake bay".

Tried some digi-images to mixed results...

White-rumped Sandpiper

Black Tern

Booted off

News of the Booted Warbler at Hadston on Saturday came too late for me - experimenting with DIY had reached a point of no return...

Sunday commenced with another rapid response trip to West Hartford to collect the little stint that had dropped into say hello to the seemingly resident sanderling. Another great Cramlington year-tick.

Little Stint and Sanderling - an unlikely duo at West Hartford - picture through the scope...

With the biggy (smally?) in the bag, I headed up the coast - negative news already from Hadston, so I called into East Chevington for a decent couple of hours. The spotted crake resides, and at time has forays out into the open - chasing off snipe, redshank and teal while I was there.

A black tern dropped in and fed actively over the northern section of the north pool, while waders were complimented with spotted redshank and ruff.

Spot Shank - again through the scope

With the sun breaking through I headed to Hadston Carrs - no sign of the booted warbler, and a quick look to sea provided manx shearwater, gannet, arctic skua and hods of kittiwake.

Cresswell had greenshank, 2 spotted redshank, avocet and a ruff. Otherwise quiet.

More spots

Another Saturday, more spotting spotteds... A crake today, with the elusive East Chevington bird on show for a matter of seconds! 

Whimbrel and black tailed godwit also present, while at Newbiggin I continue to not see roseate tern.

Spots, whiskers, wits & shanks

Started the birding day at Shibton Pond in Gateshead -  arrived not long after 08:00 to a full hide and plenty of birds to look at.

The spotted crake was feeding on the far shore - my second at the site - the last one I saw here was in 1989. For convenient comparison three water rail were also out feeding - they highlight that spotted crake are really very small, with the crake dwarfed!

Fellow north-east bloggers need not worry about missed crake photo opportunities at Shibton either - the image posted here is for illustration purposes only - this fine and ringed fellow was photographed at Marazion Marsh (Cornwall) in October 2007.

Two little egret remain at the pond and I note that another was noted on the River Tyne a little later after we had left. 1 greenshank was also noted.

We met John B and James at Saltholme just after nine, and it wasn't long before we were watching the immature whiskered tern (now approaching a months residence). A tick for Phil, albeit distant in the middle of the west pool. Frustratingly that's where it remained throughout our two watches from the roadside, even when fly-catching it remained faithful to the central part of the pool - never in contention for a photograph.

Wader species were well represented, with dunlin, ruff, ringed plover, greenshank, redshank, spotted redshank, black-tailed godwit and lapwing present and at least twelve little egret. Coot were very well represented on the east pool and a single black-necked grebe consorted with little and great-crested relatives. Yellow wagtail are still present on the reserve.

So no images from today but a nice few hours out catching up with the lads, with a few decent birds to boot.

Highlight for all was the "9 item" breakfast at the visitor centre...