Tystie, tystie, very, very tystie

Twists of fate led to a full-fat patch tick on Friday.

Firstly - I wouldn't have normally been at Druridge on a Friday lunchtime. I'd have been at work. A good friend from Malta, Justin Vassallo, was visiting so I took the day off to take him birding. Justin is a legend - he started the first Maltese Raptor Camps in 1999, when he was only 19. I met him in 2001 when I went to my first of four raptor camps. We've been friends ever since. 

Secondly - We'd spent the first part of the morning seawatching at Snab Point so wouldn't have ordinarily gone back to look at the sea. We were in the little hide at Druridge when a couple of visiting birders told us they had seen two great northern divers with a single red-throated offshore - A chap had put them onto them. We retrieved the scopes from the car and headed up there. The 'finder' wandered off when we arrived. No sign of the GNDs but there was enough to look at so we stayed a while.

And that's how I happened to be in the right place at the right time.

We counted at least 20 red-throats on the sea, 160 common scoters, large auks, red-breasted mergansers, three scaup, great crested grebes. All good stuff for a Maltese birder. After 30 minutes or so of scanning, I picked up an auk headed north, already north of us - big white wing patches stood out immediately on an otherwise black and white 'motley' auk. Justin was looking south when I called it  - Black Guillemot! Despite my best efforts I couldn't get him onto it before it disappeared into a trough and was lost to sight. Given the scaly-dusky-ness of the bird I think it was a first-winter rather than a winter adult. 

I suppose 'tystie' is overdue as a patch bird and I shouldn't have been unexpected but it certainly wasn't on my radar for Friday - given reports from elsewhere, great shearwater or white-billed diver would've been more likely. So,  a pleasant surprise. Tystie takes my patch list to 253 and the patch list to 272.

We retired to the Drift Café for lunch and a celebratory beer.

Justin and me - celebrating a few lifers for him and a patch tick for me with a bottle of Curlew Return each

Elsewhere on the patch, late common darter and migrant hawker dragonflies were on the wing and three mistle thrushes were around the farm. Four barnacle geese were new for the autumn.

One of many common darters

Mistle thrush - not common on the patch

After the excitement of Friday, Saturday was a bit more mundane. 

It was a grey day, no wind, just flat... as was the birding. I decided to have a look on the sea. The sea was flat too. There was steady, northerly, kittiwake passage and three little gulls lingered offshore. A single female scaup came in with a red-breasted merganser and two turnstone flew north. 35 red-throated divers were on the sea, eight flew north and one went south.  

Coal tit in the plantation on Saturday

Today, Janet and I walked north from the plantation and back by the beach. The bushes were VERY quiet. The three mistle thrushes were still about. On the beach, a single rock pipit feeding on the seaweed north of the Dunbar Burn was a year-tick. Rock pipits are tricky at Druridge so it was welcome. 

Rock pipit

Carrion Crow on the beach

Razorbill - still a few auks feeding close inshore

Ringed plovers from last week

A sizeable (250+) flock of finches roamed about the dunes, I think 85-90% of them were linnets. No twite yet. 

A walk to the extremities

I set out to explore the less-frequented extremities of my patch today with a walk out to High Chibburn Farm, Low Chibburn Preceptory and the northern dunes. I included the farm and the Preceptory in the patch boundary for some variety but I rarely get out that far. Today I was in search of Collared Doves and Yellowhammers. I failed on both counts. 

Low Chibburn Preceptory

The right of way back to the Reserve

The farm is good for House Sparrows and the countryside around it can be good for Red-legged Partridge and today was no exception, otherwise I didn't see much. Walking back along the path to the hides, it was quite warm in the sunshine and out of the northerly wind and it brought out some late insects. 

Male Common Darter

Male Small Copper on Ragwort

Migrant Hawker

A single Whooper Swan was on the big pool and a Kestrel hunted along the road.

Kestrel hunting

The Kestrel successfully caught a small mammal and flew off into the bushes with it

In the weedy dunes there was a flock of at least 27 Reed Bunting - probably an undercount. I grilled them for any rarer buntings and the finch flock (about 120) didn't contain any Twite. Given that I walked 6km, I didn't come away with a huge list an the year list remains on 170.

One of the Reed Bunting flock

Male Blackcap in the Elder

Last night I had an hour grilling  the scoter flock for the potential Surf Scoter, no luck but there were 22 Red-throated Divers and a handful of Razorbills with the Scoters. 

Six Whooper Swans came in-off and another five went south and landed on the sea opposite the Drift Cafe. Here are a couple of arty-shots as the first six flew west. My first Whoopers of the Autumn

Whooper Swans headed west

Into the clouds...

Back to the patch

Back to the patch (proper) this evening after a trip down to Tarifa for migration. I say 'proper' because I did run briefly onto the patch on Wednesday evening to tick the red-footed falcon.

After watching tens of thousands birds migrate through the Straits of Gibraltar and then coming home to a red-footed falcon on the patch, the patch was going to have to conjure up something spectacular not to disappoint - it didn't

Adult male honey buzzard roosting in gale-force winds in La Janda near Tarifa

There was a few good birds reported from Holy Island and the Farnes today, so it was always going to be worth a look through the bushes. All I found was a few willow warblers and blackcap, it was getting on for dusk and quite breezy.

There was a migrant hawker flying around the bushes, it didn't land, but this common darter did.

Male common darter

So no scarcities at Druridge tonight but the forecast for the weekend through to Monday looks a bit tasty and will hopefully drop some birds in.

Bit of ringing, bit of birding

Friday off work meant a long weekend for me, I put my day off to good use and put some nets up.

It was really calm and a thick sea-fret was in, although it was a 'hanging' fret rather than a 'wetting' one, which was good for ringing.

I only had three nets up and caught and 45 birds, seven of which were retraps. We caught a few passage migrant warblers, mostly chiffchaffs and blackcaps with lesser whitethroat, sedge warbler and willow warbler adding to the diversity. We also caught seven goldcrests, the first of the autumn.

Meadow pipit passage was evident on Friday and for the rest of the weekend along with a few skylarks. A great-spotted woodpecker was noted flying through as were a whimbrel and 4 ruff with some lapwings.

The weather forecasts for Friday night to Saturday morning were all over the place. They all predicted rain, but differed in how long it would last. It was clear by dawn, so I was out looking for migrants. I started in the plantation, with a spotted flycatcher and a 'hippo' type warbler, which I had the briefest of views of and was never seen again despite and hour and a half spent in the pines searching for it. It appeared to be a compact warbler, slightly larger than willowchiff, warm buffy brown above and on the flanks, off-white-grey on the underside. That is all I got on it.

I gave up on it and went to check the bushes elsewhere. Lots of goldcrests, robins, chiffchaffs and whitethroats were flitting about. On the fence by the entrance there were two wheatears, they were later joined by a whinchat, which was my second of the morning. I was beginning to think I might miss whinchat this year then two come along at once (I saw two more at Snab Point later in the day).

wheatears on return passage

Skylarks and meadow pipits were going south all morning.

This morning, I went to ring a brood of barn owls. This is a second brood from a pair that has already fledged a brood of four. There were five of them, with quite a size difference, this one being the largest.

young female barn owl (you can see how spotty she is), the biggest of five from a second brood.

Today was also WeBS count day. Highlights were a good count of moorhen (17) and little grebe (16). This evening there were 16 red-throated divers in the bay, many in breeding plumage still. there are still red admiral and lots of speckled wood butterflies on the wing, the latter being the commonest butterfly at Druridge which was not even noted here until 2006. Migrant hawkers and common darters were about too.

red admiral

common darter on a bramble leaf

153 spotted flycatcher
154 whinchat

PWC Score 217

WeBS Waders and a wasted opportunity

I'm a bit gutted. Druridge was 'hotching' with warblers today, I should have had the nets up for a ringing session but I didn't...."Why?" I hear you ask.

Well, all of the weather forecasts for this morning was for heavy rain by 9am, some forecasting it earlier. So, based on that we decided not to ring. When did the rain finally arrive? After lunch - typical! 

I did my WeBS count this morning instead. Just as I got the scope set up in the Budge screen hide, a big female sparrowhawk put everything up, so I headed for the other hides and met this unlikely double-act on the way.

Scarce and rare visitors to patch

One of them admitted to not being to the pools for at least three years, the other couldn't remember how long it was. Rarer than barred warblers at Druridge, the pair of them! Nice to see them though, don't leave it so long next time!

By the time I got to the little hide, the waders had settled back down. Two, maybe three wood sandpipers, one green sandpiper (which alluded me yesterday), one greenshank and three common sandpipers with several dunlin and over 25 snipe.

Other WeBS highlight were a good count of 191 mallard, 14 little grebe, two little egret and the pair of nesting great-crested grebes.

Cormorant from the Oddie hide

Yesterday there were five greenshanks, a calling green sandpiper, two wood sands and a single common sandpiper. There were also dozens of visiting birders, from Tyneside, Cumbria and even yorkshireland! Despite the little hide being full to capacity for much of the morning, it didn't deter the swallows from feeding their rapidly growing chicks.

Swallow feeding young in the little hide

Butterflies on the wing over the weekend included wall, red admiral, meadow brown, painted lady, peacock, comma and small copper.

painted lady

Head on - a rarely photographed view of a red admiral

Dragonflies have been very scarce at Druridge this year, but not elsewhere seemingly...odd?

Female common darter in the plantation

On Thursday night/Friday morning we had another go at catching storm petrels on the beach, with moderate success, catching three. Two of them were already ringed, which isn't a bad thing, catching them again helps to increase our understanding of this species.

Finally, just to show that we get a better class of vandal at Druridge...

Seemingly Maria was there too.

147 Green sandpiper

PWC Score 207

Ringing, WeBS and Darters

We put some nets up on Saturday morning but ringing was very slow and by midday we hadn't reached double figures. We caught our first goldcrest of the autumn and a couple of warblers, goldfinches, a blackbird and blue tit.


There seemed to be a few birds int he bushes, but maybe it looked as though there were more than there actually was when the birds gathered on the eastern edge to make the most of the warm sunshine?

This spotted flycatcher was the star amongst the whitethroats, blackcaps, chiffchaffs and willow warblers. A great-spotted woodpeckers was heard but not seen and a pair of kestrels and a sparrowhawk were the raptor highlights.

spotted flycatcher

I had a quick look on the sea in the evening, there were lots of red-throated divers in the bay in varying plumages.

Today was WeBS count day. The Budge fields didn't take much counting, 12 teal, one mallard, two curlew and grey heron.

There was little more life on the big pool, although a great-crested grebe was nice to see - a bit of a scarcity at Druridge in recent years.

This little grebe was amusing, it seemed determined to be sat on a rock, trying three before it finally settled on one it liked.Quite odd to a little grebe perched out like this.

Second choice of rock

Maybe this one will do?


A bit more company here...

The 'Indian summer' the newspapers are heralding hadn't brought many butterflies out bu there were lots of common darters. A good chance to practice my dragonfly photography.

I wasn't down at Druridge in time to see, or take part in, the mass skinnydip, but you can read all about it here 

 148 spotted flycatcher