Mostly Seawatching

 This week I've mostly been seawatching.

With the wind switching to the north for most of the week, I've been seawatching at every opportunity, I've even abandoned Druridge for Snab Point a couple of times for rarer species.

It all started last Sunday, I had an evening seawatch, the wind was NE but light but it was a good start.

Arctic Skua 2

Bonxie 2

Little Gull 1

Roseate Tern 3

Sooty Shearwater 1

Manx Shearwater 11

Two Velvet scoter with 460 Common.

Young Gannet

On Tuesday evening the seawatching was quiet but the light was amazing and it was nice to just watch the common species. A juvenile Black Tern going north was a nice year-tick.

Oystercatchers in evening sunlight - a mix of adults and juveniles.

Curlew in silhouette

On Thursday another evening seawatch was more productive. 12 Manx and four Sooty Shearwaters, a Great Norther Diver in summer plumage, four Roseate Terns and four Bonxies.

On Friday evening, the wind had dropped but was still NE and it was overcast. 18 Pale-bellied Brent Geese headed north were my first of the year on the patch. Seemingly the same group were in Norfolk the previous day. 

Northbound - Pale-bellied Brents

A few Sooty and Manx Shearwaters, five Bonxies and two Arctic Skua, as I was about to head home when I got onto a distant shearwater. On jizz, before side-on views,  I thought 'Balearic' - the flight was too languid for Manx. It was distant and and the already poor light was fading fast (19:20) - it probably was Balearic but I wouldn't want to claim it.

Cormorant 

On Sunday morning reports came through of a Balearic Shearwater headed north past Whitburn. I decided, rather than risk not seeing it at Druridge I would go to Snab Point, still inside my 5km Patch. News came from Newbiggin that the bird had gone past Church Point, we waited, and waited. 40 minutes passed, two angling boats that had been offshore motored north, Ashington Gary suggested the shearwater might be behind them, I scanned wit the scope and there it was, some way departing boats. It was distant but gave good views, showing a 'dark' armpit, but not a very dark 'smudgy mark'  - jizz was more Balearic than Manx but it looked different. 

Photos and videos taken at Whitburn show this bird to be atypical for Balearic and it certainly looks like many photos of Yelkouan Shearwater. One for the experts...

An amazing number of Med Gulls, at least 75, were on the beach in Lynemouth Bay. A Greenshank on the beach there was nice. I like Snab Point, it's nice to see some rocky shore species. 

One of the Meds

The wind was still out of the north this morning, it was cold and raining when I arrived on the patch. I headed for the Budge hide rather than the dunes. The Spoonbill was still there but little else so I braved a seawatch. 

The showers kept coming, they were light, but squally, and the visibility was awful. Two Pale-bellied Brent went through, followed by ten more and a single bonxie. Another squally shower, and from inside the bay, through the murk, a shearwater came through, again I thought Balearic, again, because of the poor light, not enough to clinch it. I was more certain of this closer bird than Friday's mega distant bird. A single Manx followed it shortly afterwards and I was more certain the first bird was a Balearic but I'll not be submitting it. Another shower loomed so I gave up and went home.

I was back out at Snab Point later for another north-bound Balearic that didn't make it much beyond Newbiggin, where it stopped for lunch. I did the same.

One of the resident Fulmars at Snab - much closer than the passage birds

Juvenile Arctic Skua

Same bird as above

Sea-watching and Stormies

With reports of a movement of seabirds from coastal watchpoints, I headed to Druridge for a sea-watch on Saturday afternoon.

I arrived at quarter to five and it was quite quiet a first with a few distant manx shearwaters beyond the pot flags. There were a lot of fulmars and a few roseate terns were flying by and feeding. I had my first of two sooty shearwaters, which was about two-thirds out, at about half five, the second one was later and closer. 

The manx shearwaters kept coming, some very close and a couple of arctic skuas went through together in line with the flags. Just after 6.15 I got onto a pale skua about half-way out - a very pale adult pomarine skua 'with spoons'  - bonus! It was interesting that this bird hadn't been seen at Newbiggin so presumable had been sat on the sea somewhere before flying past Druridge?

Just after the 'Pom' a Fea's petrel was reported past Whitburn. It would take it at least and hour and a half to get to Druridge and the light would be fading but I thought I would hang on. I had lots more manx, another arctic skua but not much else. When the Fea's hadn't been seen at St. Mary's or Newbiggin it was time to head home  - It was a chilly night and I was freezing!

The evening forecast was light winds and no rain so we decided to have a last try for storm petrels. We've never tried to catch any this late in the year before, our previous latest session was 8th August, but worth a try.

When we arrived on the beach and got the nets set up, there was big, bright full moon - it was almost like daylight! Not good for catching birds as they would see the net. The forecast predicted increasing amounts of cloud as the night went on. 

We were joined by Laura Shearer, Paul Stewart, Irene Ajo and the Farooqi's and to our amazement we caught a storm petrel just before half-past ten, the earliest we've caught one by a whole hour - and in what we thought were impossible conditions. We had the nets up until 12.30 and didn't catch anything else so we packed up and went home.

Storm Petrel (Photo: Laura Shearer)

That will be our last session for this year. We've had two sessions this year and caught four storm petrels and one Leach's petrel.

Patch tick conundrum

I saw a Ross's Goose on the patch today. Can I add it to my Druridge patch list?

The goose in question was first picked up lifting off from near East Chevington by Alan Gilbertson and myself as a white goose amongst about 1000 pinkfeets. From a long-way off, it looked like quite big and we guessed it was a snow goose. A better view was required, the geese had landed one field north of the patch boundary, how frustrating.

Alan left and Janet arrived, we went for a better look. Closer inspection proved it to be an adult Ross's goose, but it was still outside the patch.

We spent the rest of the afternoon chainsawing, reducing the height of some alders and ash trees around our net-rides and doing some much-needed coppicing. As we worked, the geese flock got up a again and circled over the northern edge of the patch. The 'white one' was easily picked out.

Now the conundrum. Ross's goose still isn't on the official British list, residing in category D. Identification isn't in question, it's the origin of these birds that hasn't been confirmed. There have been a few Ross's in the UK over the past decade that look for genuine vagrants (timing and arrival with possible carrier species). Alongside this, the world population of Ross's has massively increased from an estimated 3000 individuals in the 1930's to 188,000 in the 1980's making genuine vagrancy more likely.

So what do I do?

Add Ross's Goose to the Druridge List? (I see from BUBO Listing that some Northumbrian birders have added the 2004 Hauxley Ross's goose to their county lists)

Create a 'pending' category and add it as an 'armchair' tick when the BOURC add it to the British list?

or

Forget all about it

Time to ponder. Despite spending the whole afternoon chainsawing, as well as Ross's Geese I managed to add oystercatcher and whooper swan to the year-list and watch two fantastic short-eared owls in the dunes.

79 oystercatcher
80 whooper swan
81 Ross's goose??? (Pending)

Nice to be back

I was so pleased to get out and go birding today, having fought my way to work and back every day and stuck at home all last weekend it was great to be back on the patch. What made it even better? Quality winter birding!

Cold

To kick off - lots of geese between Druridge and Hemscotthill, approaching 1000 pink-foots with nine pale-bellied brents in with them. I didn't get the scope for out for fear of scaring them, so I didn't get a chance to grill them for any other species.

Pink-footed geese near Druridge Hamlet

I had a good walk around the patch, the most obvious and amazing thing was the number of woodcocks, they were everywhere! I din't need to walk through the bushes, there were four in the willows by the Budge screen, twelve in the pine plantation by the entrance, four in the scabby blackthorns at he north end and even one in the mugwort valley of death. There was shooting going on in the surrounding shelterbelts all day - I wonder if it was woodcock they were after?


The only woodcock  curlew photo I managed to get - I think a fox may have got it first

 Whilst looking for woodcocks to photograph, I saw a stoat prancing about after something, no photo's sadly but great to watch.

The big pool had lots of wildfowl on it, nothing unusual, just common winter ducks, wigeon was the most numerous at 250.

Winter wildfowl on the big pool

There were lots of small birds on the move too. A flock of 50 or so skylarks were put up by a sparrowhawk, 60 twite where in the dunes to the north, two flocks of long-tailed tit and a flock of 55 goldfinch were roving about.

goldcrest on teasel

Nothing of note on the beach other than this gruesome dead grey seal minus its eyes and a peregrine over the dunes.

Not looking good.....

At High Chibburn Farm an incredible 29 yellowhammers were keeping their feet warm on top of the cowsheds and 20 or so skylark fed on spilled grain by the barn.

One of 29 yellowhammer son the roof of the barn at High Chibburn Farm

So not a bad days winter birding - 51 species without even trying.

No Birds!

Well, hardly any birds....Today first visit was mostly spent looking at anything other than birds.

We started at the Budge screen this morning, where this mole entertained us for about 20 minutes, even scurrying under the floor of the hide, some video will be posted tomorrow night.

We then went to the other hides, stopping at the huge viper's bugloss on the way which was alive with bees, moths, butterfly's and various other random insects - here are a few:

large skipper butterfly

silver Y moth

painted lady butterfly

common blue butterfly

(later on we bumped into Frank who had seen a hummingbird hawkmoth on the same plant - grrr)

Further up the track was this common blue damselfy

From the Oddie hide the three otter cubs where playing along the back of the big pool and from the little hide we saw that the lapwing pair had hatched three young.

So when the clouds rolled in of the North Sea and it got a bit misty, we went back to Druridge to catch and ring the chicks, they were tiny but it wasn't an easy job. Lapwing chicks crouch down when approached, they are incredibly well camouflaged, so much, you can't even see them at your feet!

Using stealth tactics of me in the hide keeping an eye on them, Janet went off to catch them. We managed to catch and ring all three, hopefully they will make it to adulthood unlike Thursday's sparrowhawk victim.

tiny lapwing chick - sporting it's new ring

and then legging it away at high speed to join it's siblings

Slug sees very little at Druridge

This slug saw very little of interest from the Oddie tonight

It did see a brood of four new gadwall chicks, it also this saw this yellow shell moth on the track

It noticed that the lapwing that has been sitting on eggs in front of the little hide has now hatched them and there is at least one chick scampering about (there may have been more but it only saw one at any one time!).

It had a look offshore but there wasn't anything new to see.

I didn't bother checking the patch tonight as the slug told me all I needed to know.

Thursday afternoon - velvet scoter

I squeezed a very quick visit in to Druridge on Thursday afternoon, between leaving work and going to see Blur at the Academy, I went through the scoter flock and there was a drake velvet right at the front of the flock - cool eh?

Oh, and good news from Roger Foster on the partridge nest front! He reckons all is well, the eggs have hatched naturally, he could see were the egg tooth had broken through and the mother would have moved them quickly out of the nest in search of insects. I'll keep an eye out for them.

119 velvet scoter

Quick Change

There was an incredibly quick change in the weather tonight, it had been hot and sunny with a light easterly, all day and still was when I arrived at Druridge at 6pm. I went for a look on the sea and could see a bank of cloud offshore, within 20 minutes it came over Druridge and then you could see the front edge moving inland, by the time I left at 8.20pm the sky was completely clouded over as far west as I could see.

The sunshine rapidly disappearing -spot the marsh harrier?

A couple of disappointments tonight, firstly, I checked the grey partridge nest (remember the one with 12 eggs?), well they were all broken, there is no way they could have hatched and left the nest, so I am assuming predation. I am no eggspert (groan) but the don't look like they've hatched naturally, more like they've been broken by something, any thoughts?

The second disappointment was a female sparrowhawk nabbing one of the lapwing chicks. I was alerted to this by all of the lapwings up in the air after something, then spotted the sprawk making off a with yougun. pursued to the wood by at least 12 lapwings, all calling.

The semi-colonial nesting of lapwings is a defence against predators, but not this one. I later saw both male and female sprawks out by the pool.

Offshore there was a harbour porpoise and 2 roseys.

luvverly morning

I managed a quick visit to Druridge this morning, it was a gloriously sunny morning, a real pleasure to be out. There was one highlight, a long-eared owl on the edge of the patch. LEO's occur most summers somewhere on the bay, favouring the coniferous shelter belts, even nesting at the Country Park some years, amongst the picnickers and tourists.

Druridge - who needs tropical beaches?

Bloody Cranesbill

No opportunity to visit Druridge this evening as I had to work..... It's a tough life having work all day and put an evening shift in!

I had to take our Young Rangers group out to the Farne Islands, told you it was tough!

There was patchy sea mist on the way out, which came and went throughout the evening, which made for interesting light. Now if I had a fancy expensive camera, I am sure I could have done something arty, but I haven't so this is it:

118 long-eared owl

After the rain

After last nights heavy rain, I thought something might have dropped into Druridge, so I headed down there before work, nowt startling to be honest though I did get four year-ticks. Best of the bunch was single swift over (north), short-eared owl lifting from reed canary grass and my first common whitethroat of the year. Other notable birds were three lesser whitethroats, one house martin and five groppers

94 common whitethroat
95 swift
96 house martin
97 short-eared owl

Druridge tonight

Back from Dublin after seeing the mighty AC/DC, I'm in one piece but my wallet's not - jeees it's expensive over there, €6 for a bottle of lager in the venue and €6 a pint elsewhere!

AC/DC were worth every penny though

It was a nice bright night at Duridge tonight, a cold south-easterly reminding me it was still April though. Chatting to IF at the entrance, we saw at least four wheatears on the short grass, with another further along. Last weeks little egret was still on the Budge Fields, it's never easy to see, preferring to skulk in the rushes at the back, my first whimbrel of the year called as it flew south, two more were calling later. IF had seen a mallard accompanied by a gaggle of very small ducklings, but I didn't see them.

Stonechat on the fence enjoying a caterpillar

Offshore, more year-ticks were to be had, several puffins flew back and forth, 13 common scoter flew north (it's incredible that these are the first common scoter I have seen on the patch this year) and a pair of red-breasted mergansers were floating about on the sea. Sandwich tern numbers have really picked up this week and there are still at least 11 red-throated divers offshore.

snipe on the Budge fields

82 whimbrel

83 puffin

84 common scoter

85 red-breasted merganser