Outing 6

Outing 6 of the annual 10 year project - a weekend with John B, Mark A, Rob L and guest appearances from Ian R and Sacha B...

Potential for rares appeared high on Friday 2nd, with reports of Norfolk Blyths' Pipit and Marsh Sandpiper... alas it was a quieter weekend than hoped - but not without 5 more ticks for the overall 10 year trip list

10 Years 10 Trips…
Trip Totals	81	117	115	98	112	107
Cumulating Totals	81	145	181	193	211	215
	Mull/Iona 8/9 May 2010	Norfolk 27/29 May 2011	Northumberland 23/24/25 Mar 2012	Speyside and Scotland Tour 3/4/5 May 2013	Norfolk and Suffolk 1/2 Mar 2014	Norfolk 3/4 Oct 2015

The new species - Golden Pheasant (quite unexpected at Wolferton - male on the roadside early morning), Yellow-browed Warbler, Arctic Skua, Great Skua and Great White Egret.

Some pictures...

Sunny Days

Great weather continues, and a smattering of birds to see too - yellow-browed warbler at the entrance to Druridge, shore lark still on the beach at East Chevington and just inland on newly created pools, a Slavonian grebe, a thousand or so pink footed geese and a single peregrine.

Spot the shore lark...

Horns and Vire-no's

It's been a while since I last saw Shorelark in Northumberland, and today it prove to be compensatory for a lack of Red-eyed Vireo at Newton.

Very dapper.

Newton, along with a nice meal at The Ship, provided another Yellow-browed Warbler.

Seconds

Where the actions is/at...

More of the same this afternoon, with a couple of hours at Marden Quarry - brief view of the Pallas's Warbler, prolonged views of Yellow-browed Warbler and Siberian Chiffchaff. Quite a trio of Sibes...

Prior to that, Arcot was twitched - Whooper Swans for the patch list courtesy GM.

Good times...

The Audibles

Headed north with Mark and Phil today for an attempt at the Sardinian Warbler. The bird has been present a week or so now, and with Mark and Phil both "needing it", it seemed to close not to go and have a look.

Looking we did, but it was more of a listen. Yellow-brows were heard frequently while traversing the west bank of the loch, and a firecrest joined in during the vigil.

We had one or two probable views, and frustratingly the bird started calling loudly from deep within the scrub mere meters from us...

Time beat us, and with a pitstop for a delightful quail & black pudding scotch egg, we headed back to the sanctuary and safety of Northumberland.

The Richards

With Chris C up for the weekend, Mark and I were hopeful for a good migrant haul today - especially after the good run if east coast records this past week. Alas it was not to be - the bluethroat at St Mary's appears to have gone, and with yellow-browed warbler aplenty at the second destination we didn't hang on to long.

Whitburn was marginally better - with 2 Richards Pipit frequenting the field opposite the coastal park and a single yellow-browed warbler. The un identified acro was unseen by us, and a fear of leaving before anything of significance had been trapped kept us on the site for a few hours.

Glorious sunshine and nice to catch up with CC.

Brown Shrikes "all over the place" might be an indicator of what's to come over the next few days....

More of the same

Another trip to Hartley / St Mary's this morning - sunny and quieter than yesterday. The bluethroat continues, while 2 yellow-browed warbler were also noted.

Feeling blue...

Headed out early this morning, starting back at the dunes between Blyth and Seaton Sluice - no sign of yesterdays red-backed shrike.

Seaton Sluice appeared quiet - 2 stonechat and the flock of house sparrow... so headed to Hartley to try for yellow-browed warbler on the mounds. Greeted by a pager message advising of a bluethroat at the northern most mound, and a few minutes later were enjoying close views on the track - a good result and my first in the county for several years. Frustratingly only had the bridge camera, and while record shots were possible, the quick reaction focus of the DSLR would have been better...

Back at Seaton Sluice, the hunt for common rosefinch was unsuccessful, but a yellow-browed warbler flew in off the sea...

War and peace...

An interesting morning at St Mary's...

& yellow-browed too. Nice.

Yellow Fever

Beautiful sunny morning at St Mary's, with an elusive yellow-browed warbler finally photographed over midday. Waited years to clinch a decent image, so was happy to get a satisfactory shot in nice conditions. Used the "focus on a branch and hope it goes there" approach...

Birding Hong Kong: Part 1 of 2

Birding in Hong Kong was very limited for the 'sometimes crew... Four sites were birded during the week stay - Kowloon Park, Hong Kong Park, Hong Kong Botanical/Zoological Gardens and Hong Kong Wetlands, near Tin Shui Wai to the north-west of Hong Kong.

The masked laughingthrush (above) was photographed in Kowloon Park ~ tribes of this species roamed the hedge-rows and were quite bold. Kowloon Park also held a small flock of breeding alexandarine parakeet (we had a minimum of 11 one morning), black-necked starling, a large residence of black-crowned night heron, a pair of crested goshawk, while yellow-browed warbler and pallas's warbler felt more familiar. The first of several grey form (commixtus) great tit were also present, none of which were photographable as they fed in dense cover.

Hong Kong Park added black-throated laughingthrush to the holiday list (tho these birds are descended from captive birds) and fork-tailed sunbird were present in the canopy. None of the hoped for siberian rubythroat, rufous-tailed robin etc could be found...

The bulk of the birding was at the wetland reserve - an impressive visitor centre marks the reserve entrance, and conveniently it contains a decent cafe too!

Very popular with families when we visited on January 1st, the site is clearly popular... though most were there for a day out rather than specifically the birds.

Bulbuls were evident near the visitor centre, with red-whiskered (crested), sooty-headed and, above, chinese loafing about. On the water, moorhen, great cormorant, teal, pintail, shoveler and grey heron were very familiar...

Daurian redstart were abundant, this confiding bird was near the river hide. At one point it shared a bush with a yellow-browed warbler and siberian stonechat! On the river there were more of the familiar waterbirds that have already been mentioned, but a black-capped kingfisher was new for me.

The grey-backed thrush (above) was photographed near the mudflat hide - this is a female - quite a stunner!

The star(s) of the show were on the mudflats - viewed distantly from the hide were a group of 16 black-faced spoonbill. In typical spoonbill fashion, they remained mostly asleep! Bit odd seeing them with so many grey heron... A few great egret and little egret were also present, while waders included greenshank, common sandpiper, marsh sandpiper and impressive little-ringed plover numbers. White wagtail fed on the shore and in cut grass, and appeared to be of the leucopsis race.

Yellow & Grey Birding

Started the birding day at a wonderfully sunny Tynemouth, where a very active yellow-browed warbler continued to flit about the sycamores' just prior to the pier. Nice birds, ybws', but damn tricky to photograph! This bird was occasionally calling but tended to keep high up the bank. I later received a text from CB (who had been at the pier... he had a ybw in his garden - nice!)

Early afternoon saw me arrive a ridiculously busy Holy Island. Newcastles' Northumberland Street must have been empty today - everyone was here!

A quick trudge across the dunes near Chare Ends (viewed north from the "9" on the map) saw me and a noisy RSPB-type group have views of a single great grey shrike - always a stunner but clearly a very wary bird, keeping to a distance of over 100m. Maybe it was all the unnecessary irrelevant noisy chat from the people there...

View Larger MapDriving Directions

The village was very quiet bird-wise; the occasional brambling was seen and heard, while the vicars garden held one pied flycatcher. No sign of TC/MHs spotted flycatcher and I did not make the effort to head to the straight lonnen for their barred warbler as tales of long waits were not in my favour.

The significant highlight of the Holy Island was undoubtedly the delicious bacon buttie from the cafe. Always a winner.

West Hartford pit-stop visit produced c100 lapwing, a few bhg, a single mallard and a buzzard over the River Blyth.

Hopefully get out on Sunday too...

Eastern Crowned Warbler / Autumn Colours

Fridays selection of images can only be regarded as record shots as the bird barely filled the central focus spot with the 500mm & 1.4 extender. However the colours of the sycamore leaves in the photographs provide a subtle distraction from the notequiteascloseasI'dliketohavebeento phyllosc.

My journey to seeing the bird was not quite as normal as... normal. I'd been on a pager-less nightshift on Thursday, so it wasn't until I was leaving work at 5am on Friday morning that I discovered that this mega was present via a bunch of text messages. Panic set in - I was due back to work at 13:30 and I needed some sleep. Do I stay awake and go there straight away. Do I dash home and have a power nap. Do I risk waiting till Saturday. Do I assume it's not going to be there....?

A tawny owl flapped past the car as I approached Cramlington

I woke up just after eight and much headless chicken mode ensued when I read that the bird was still present and apparently showing well.

After a quick call to arrange a pick-up of Dad we were off. Thankfully the Tyne Tunnel commute traffic had eased, so we arrived not long after nine. As I drove along the Leas looking for a parking space I spotted Mark heading back to his car - so the omen was good - I doubted that he'd leave the site so soon without the tick. A quick call confirmed it's presence and guidance for the best viewing.

First bird on view was a dapper yellow-browed warbler, closely followed by the eastern crowned. Result!

We spent the next three hours amongst the crowd of 150 - 200(?ish) listening to a variety of banter describing past twitches, near-fights, rapid journeys to the north-east and the strange and curious characters that this past-time attracts. It's fair to say that these sort of megas do attract the oddities of the human race. Readers of this blog excepted of course. ;-)

Firebrow

A late morning/early afternoon visit to St Mary's Wetland produced glimpses of both firecrest and yellow-browed warbler. Both species were camera shy. Plenty of redwing dropping in, but were very skittish and quickly moved inland and only one goldcrest was seen.

The cemetery at Whitley Bay prove to be quiet, I could not relocate the yellow-brow that had been reported earlier and made do with further redwing, mistle thrush, grey wagtail, great and blue tit.

It was annoying to hear that the radde's at Druridge had been booted a bit this morning after being battered with mp3... anyone remember fieldcraft and patience? Or is that not convenient for "listing" in this day and age?