The collector

Courtesy of LiverB, garganey today, again at Arcot. No sign of the scoter but that perhaps was not expected. A water rail made a brief appearance though...

Sands & Rails

Arcot delivered this morning, with common, wood (2) and green sandpiper all available. A minimum of three water rail, all showing on the mud was great to see too...

Last 2 evenings before summer-time

With the onset of longer evenings, I've spent the last two patrolling West Hartford. Not a significant amount to report - 11 waxwing flew over on night 1, while this evenings search for tree sparrow failed - I still managed my own (belated) WH first - calling water rail. In addition, two curlew and two grey partridge were new for the year, and a distant short-eared owl hunted the fields towards Plessy. Buzzard have been more obvious than of late, with circling birds both at WH and from home.


No chiffchaff yet...

Distant Fox - 1200mm on the point and click!

Cresswell ~ waders, an albino and a cuckoo

A couple of hours at Cresswell this morning was very productive, with little stint, ruff, water rail, spoonbill, curlew sandpiper, whimbrel, long-tailed duck, yellow wagtail, an albino barn swallow (amazing - flew south over pool), and greenshank noted.

A great display from a couple of stoats was set to be the highlight until the very last moments - when a cracking barn owl was watched hunting over the dunes and an amazingly obliging juv cuckoo fed along the entrance track!

A bit heat-hazed...

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...