Tick and Run

Much to my own disgust - I ticked and ran today...

John Todd found a White-rumped Sandpiper on the Budge fields mid-morning, I was at work but between meetings and I knew that I would be working through my lunchbreak anyway, so I was sharp on the scene. Toddy had reported it from the Little hide so I went there first, it had flown with the Dunlin towards the Budge Hide, so I headed for it and was soon watching it, a nicely marked individual, among the Dunlin. I couldn't give it long though as I had to be back home for another 'virtual' meeting. I was doing the right thing really, to enable social distancing and more people to see the bird. A great find by Toddy and my third for the patch. Previous birds have all been in early August - 12th in 2017 and 11th in 2018.

Janet and I went back this evening for a better look. 

I was on the patch this morning for a walk this morning, I did see the Dunlin flock but only had my bins so wouldn't have picked out the White-rumped if it was there. . The last two mornings have been a bit 'soft' little wind, overcast with a dampness about them.

Soft Morning

Warblers were evident again today with Willow Warbler being far and away the most numerous. There were four or five singing birds and lots of adults and juveniles feeding on the edge of the bushes.

One of many Willow Warblers

Two Little Egrets flew south but little else of note. 

Reed Bunting in Fat Hen

Fly-by Lesser Black-backed Gull

Mushrooms

Mushrooms - yet to be identified

Dodging showers

Janet and I headed to the patch for some fresh air after work today. It was fresh n'all  - 13 degrees, it was sunny when we arrived and there were a few hovers around as we wandered up to the little hide but the sky was black all around us - rain was on the way.

An adult Water Rail was showing nicely on the muddy edge from the little hide, just too far away for photos but this Hare was in range as it scampered away. A big flock of dunlin and other waders swirled around in the distance towards the Budge screen that would need a closer look.

Brown Hare - legging it across the field

The sky darkened further as we headed back towards the road and eventually we had to make a dash for the shelter of the car as the heavens opened. From the car we could see one of the juvenile Common Cuckoos, that has been much coveted by the photographers lately, sat on the fence, before it dropped in closer onto a Ragwort plant where it gobbled up several Cinnabar moth caterpillars.

Juvenile Common Cuckoo taking Cinnabar moth caterpillars from Ragwort

The rain got heavier and the Cuckoo flew even closer to the road and our car and at one point was too close for my 400mm lens - 3.5m.

Here it is, un-cropped, on the edge of being in focus.

Cuckoo!

Once the rain eased we headed for the Budge screen to scrutinise the waders. There were five Ruff, four adult males and a juvenile bird and an amazing 45 Dunlin - all adults. One can only assume, as no juveniles are present,  that these are failed breeders heading south? There were 14 Black-tailed Godwits - at least eight of them were assignable to the icelandica race and the others were a good fit. A Little Ringed Plover and three Little Gulls were nice to see.

The Budge fields have been the best for breeding waders for as long as I can remember. Lapwing have done well, despite heavy losses to Corvids and Herons. There have been at least two successful broods of Redshank and Avocet is a new breeding species. The first brood of Avocets are nearly adult-size now and will fledge but the second brood is now only one very small chick. It looked incredibly cute tonight though, in the mud, with it's little up-turned bill. The adults seemed to be paying it little regard though - waders are crap parents.

I think a combination of a very wet winter which suppressed the marginal vegetation, followed by an incredibly dry spell (lockdown) along with the grazing by the six ponies has created the prefect sward height... maybe not for Snipe though which are pretty-much absent this spring.

Full list here

Long-billed Dowitcher on WeBS count

I did my WeBS count today.

There was a very blustery SSW wind blowing which didn't make counting easy. A lot of birds were seeking shelter behind the tussocks of reed so I have probably under-counted some species.

Whilst counting ducks from the little hide, the curlews and redshanks that had been over by the Budge screen lifted and and settled a bit nearer to me. As I was counting the curlews, a smaller bird shoved its very long bill under it's wing and went to sleep - "that's the dowitcher" I said to myself as there was nobody in the hide.

Curlews counted (53) I came back to the long-billed bird. It was now obscured by sleeping curlews. Patience eventually paid off when the pack reshuffled and the dowitcher was exposed in all its glory - having a bit of a preen.

This is the third time I have seen this bird at Druridge. I am sure it must get up here more often than it is reported. There are definitely less birders getting to Druridge whilst the road up from Cresswell is closed which is no bad thing.

Amongst the wader flock were also two dunlin, two black-tailed godwits and a ruff. There are still about 300 wigeon and 70 teal on the Budge fields.

Away from the WeBS count, there was little to report. The National Trust were having a bush-craft day for kids.



Four whooper swans were in the field in front of the cottages, hanging around the feeding troughs with a couple of mutes and a greylag goose.

Whooper swans - a family party?

Mute swan

Hard Graft

Not much to report this week. A couple of short visits to the patch produced little of note other than some rather smart summer-plumaged sanderlings on the beach.

Today I spent the morning at Druridge before the rain arrived. First I checked the Budge fields where a common sandpiper on the mud was year-tick, it was accompanied by a couple of juvenile dunlin, a few snipe and a handful of lapwing...oh and two yellow wagtails.

To the dunes - There was some kind of co-ordinated cetacean watch this weekend, which saw Neil and Andrea Anderson and Tom an Muriel Cadwallender spending most of the weekend sat at Snab Point slowly freezing to death. So I thought I would have a quick look in the Bay to see if there were dolphins and amazingly there was - a pod of bottlenose dolphins about half way out.

A call to Tom confirmed that they had already seen these beasts heading north passed Snab. The dolphins were very active, breaching regularly with some getting out of the water altogether, performing pirouettes. They swam pretty quickly north and were soon just specks heading towards Coquet Island.

Excitement over, I headed for the Little hide where the same common sandpiper or a different one was on the mud. Buzzards circled the far shelterbelt and a little owl was perched on the farm buildings.

I couldn't see much from the Oddie hide as the grass was so high in front of the shutters. Nothing else for it - I trooped back to the car and got my trusty grass-knife and went back to cut the grass. What seemed like a good idea at the start seemed less-good when I had only done about half the job and I had blisters on my hand and was knackered - not used to hard graft.

I persevered and eventually had the whole lot cut. I headed off, hand bleeding, to the Country Barn for a well-deserved pasty. I hope the photographers will thank me when the mega yank or eastern wader turns up this week.

Before

After

134 Common sandpiper

Long weekend

I took Friday off work so I had a nice long weekend to do some ringing and birding on the patch.

Thursday

An early morning, pre-work visit. There seemed to have been an arrival of birds overnight with more robins, goldcrests and wrens than the previous day. There were also three great-spotted woodpeckers, blackbirds, lesser redpolls and a single blackcap - all new arrivals.

grey heron over

Work beckoned though....

Friday

I spent Friday morning checking the bushes, from the plantation in the south, up to the north end. Robins, wrens (over 32 counted), goldcrests and chiffchaffs were really evident. Thursdays redpolls had been joined by a flock of siskins and blackcap and great-spotted woodpecker were still present.

I finally got my yellow-browed warbler, just off the 'Mike Carr' path. picked up on call and found with goldcrests and a chiff in the willows. It didn't hang about. The birds were moving in waves like you get in the tropics.

One of many  robins

 There was at least nine stonechats in the dunes - showing how good a year this species has had.

Male stonechat

Vizmig was obvious with a constant movement of skylarks (35+) and meadow pipits (24+) moving south in small groups. A juvenile marsh harrier flew south, low over the bushes.

Pink-footed geese were also on the move. I estimated this skein at 150 when they flew over, I counted them on the photo and there were 151 - how's that for accurate guesswork?

151 pink-footed geese headed south

Saturday

We put some nets up on Saturday. It was 3 degrees C when we arrived and there was light frost, first frost of the year on the patch.

We caught 43 new birds, including an incredible 16 wrens. We also caught five song thrushes, which must have been freshly in. We didn't catch any chiffchaffs, but we did ring a single willow warbler, which is quite late. A great tit was a control (meaning that it had been ringed elsewhere, it had a larger 'B' ring on, so it was probably ringed as a pullus from a nestbox.

Goldfinches eating last years alder cone crop - this years very good crop is not quite ripe yet.

Yesterdays yellow-browed warbler called from the bushes. Skylark and mipit migration was still evident.

Today

Today was WeBS count day. My attempt at an early start was thwarted  with car problems. After a jump start and a trip to Kwik Fit for a new battery, I got down to patch at 15.40, £110 lighter.

An interesting wader on the far bank of the big pool had a few of us guessing for a bit. It looked a bit like a dunlin, but the jizz was wrong and some features didn't tally. It looked 'rounded and compact' and small, but difficult to judge size at such range with no comparison. It had no pectoral band, with colouring only reaching the throat. We decided that it was just a odd-looking dunlin. Interesting though.

Notable on the WeBS count was 18 little grebe, 26 gadwall and a great-crested grebe.

164 lesser redpoll
165 siskin
166 yellow-browed warbler

PWC Score - 258

End of summer?

I do like my notebooks and there is always something nice about finishing and old book and starting a new one.

The first two birds written into the old book were pied thrush and Kashmir flycatcher, in Sri Lanka - that will take some beating. The first bird in the new book was a blue tit, in the bushes by the entrance at Druridge. I wonder how long it will be before the notebook is replaced by an app that sends the records straight to the cloud? The technology is here now.

Yesterday there were a lot of warblers, mostly juveniles, in the bushes. Between the entrance bushes and the Budge screen I counted 9 whitethroats, 10 willow warblers, 4 chiffchaffs and a sedge warbler. A goldcrest called by the Budge screen.

willow warbler

There were also a lot of hirrundines moving south. At first they mainly appeared to be swallows, but soon house martin took over as the most numerous.

On the pools, 13 ruff dropped in with two smaller waders (later tracked down by Dave as an LRP and a dunlin).  And that was it, I had limited time as I was off to the match

Due to a massive hangover, it was after 4pm when I got down to the patch today. Yesterday's ruff were still on the Budge fields with at least nine snipe and a redshank. A dunlin was out in front of the Oddie hide.

little grebe enjoying the sun

In the Oddie hide, there was a swallow mystery. The two chicks were still some way of fledging when I checked them on Wednesday, with perhaps another six to eight days to go. Today, there was no sign of them, nest empty and deserted. It is feasible, as they were on a ledge, that a rodent or mustelid got them.

There were still some butterflies on the wing including red admiral, wall and this speckled wood.

speckled wood

So the dunes. This arctic skua was harassing terns just offshore, most of my photos of it were out of focus, these two weren't bad.

arctic skua

common gull

There were 21 sanderling, one dunlin and one ringed plover on the beach.

Juvenile dunlin

Add caption

sanderlings

So, today is officially the end of summer, it's felt autumnal since the first week of August I reckon. There might be some easterlies this week, with a potential low pressure moving in towards Friday....

Stormies

On Thursday night we attempted to ring storm petrels for the very first time at Druridge. Having finally got the right sound equipment, some good Mp3 calls and some new poles (big thanks to Paul Stewart) we were just waiting for the right weather.

So, the weather was good, but the tides not weren't as good with low water at 01.30, but we gave it a go and were successful, catching seven birds in total.

One of seven storm petrels caught overnight

It was still quite light until 11.30, so all of the birds were caught between midnight and half past one. We caught the last one as we were about to take the nets down, so could well have caught more if we had been prepare to stay up longer, even though the sea was a mile away by this time.

One of the birds was already ringed, so it will be interesting to find out where it has come from. We will certainly be having some more attempts if the weather is good.

We had a wander around the patch in the evening before ringing. Two spoonbills were back on the Budge fields and there were at least two little egrets, but there weren't many waders - about ten snipe, four dunlin and one whimbrel.

grey heron the Budge fields

There is a decent number of yellow wagtails both on the Budge fields and around the edge of the big pool. The stonechat pair near the concrete blockhouse have successfully fledged another three young, I make that three broods for that pair this year.

Offshore the common scoter flock numbered about 350.

144 storm petrel

PWC Score 190

A bit blowey

It was a bit blowey today and I was putting off a visit to the patch, loitering about the house, when I got a message from Dave Elliott about white-fronted geese.

The geese were in the field immediately west of the Budge fields, the shelter-belt doing its job for them. There were about 250 pink-footed geese and at least two Eurasian white-fronted geese amongst them. There may have been more, but viewing conditions were tricky, even from inside the hide!

The female type common scoter is still hanging around on the big pool, five goldeneye were notable as there hasn't been may this winter.

drake goldeneye

I had wander up to the dunes at the north end of the patch and got onto a small gull over the haul road, dark underwings, with no black int he upperwing - an adult little gull. It settled at the back of the haul road flash.

Crap record shot of adult little gull

Whilst I was watching the little gull, I got onto this dunlin hunkered down behind a huge cow shit, seeking shelter from the wind.

Dunlin - seeking shelter behind a big poo!

There were a few skylarks and a couple of reed buntings in the dunes and I flushed half-a-dozen grey partridges. These goldfinches were coming onto the haul road to drink.

Goldfinches coming in to drink

70 white-fronted goose
71 little gull
72 dunlin
73 skylark
74 reed bunting
75 grey partridge

PWC Score 93

Felt a bit autumnal

It felt a bit autumnal down at the patch today. There had been a small arrival of warblers I think, there were a few willow warblers and chiffchaffs 'wheeting' in the bushes and down the path to the hides and a collared dove flew north - a sure sign of Autumn.

There were also more migrant waders on the big pool, a juvenile little ringed plover, common sand, green sand and dunlins. Tonight three greenshanks dropped into the Budge fields.

Juvenile LRP. You can see the beginnings of the orbital ring 

These common terns were also entertaining for a while, displaying and presenting fish. Mute swans were also doing a bit of display.

Displaying common terns

Mute swan

Two little gulls were still present on the big pool. This juvenile black-headed gull has caught the fish. I am not sure of the species of fish, but it appeared to have something stuck to it or living on it, small white spheres.The gull spent ages trying to dislodge, then wash off, whatever was stuck to the fish. It gave in in the end and just ate it.

Black-headed gull with fish

Here is a close up of the fish - any thoughts?

 143 Little ringed plover

Six for the ton!

Ton up at Druridge.

Six new species today brings the Druridge year-list up to 100. Not bad considering I only managed a brief pre-work visit and an hour-or-so after work.

This morning I racked up three new species in a minute - as I got out of the car a swallow flew overhead calling, then a willow warbler sang from the wood and a grasshopper warbler reeled briefly before disappearing. A good start I thought to myself.

Within another two minutes I had a drake garganey flying around the Budge fields before coming into land - satisfied with my lot I headed for work.

This evening, one of the first birds I saw as I headed for the Haul Road Flash was a male wheatear perched on mound of shit - nice! The flash is starting to dry up, I hope it pulls in a decent bird before it does, it looks good for something to drop in. This evening there 51 dunlin,13 ringed plover and a white wagtail there.

The cold SSE wind was staring to bite, so I only managed a quick look offshore, enough to see my first sandwich terns of the year.

So that brings the Patchwatch competition total to 116. This weekend can only bring more migrants, though car shopping might get in my way.

95 swallow
96 willow warbler
97 grasshopper warbler
98 garganey
99 wheatear
100 sandwich tern

Aerial display team

It felt a little bit more like Spring today. There was some warmth in the sun, if you were out of the cool wind coming off the sea and the temperature reached a balmy eight degrees.

The warmth and sunshine was enough to encourage the lapwings on the Budge fields to start displaying again. They were displaying in early March, but the cold spell put thoughts of breeding on hold I think. Today, though, display was in full swing and I spent a nice hour just watching them.

Lapwing acrobatics

And the crow got some stick (deservedly so!)

Elsewhere on the patch, there was a complete lack of new migrants arriving. My 'hoped for' species not made it this far yet. There has been a decrease in the number of winter visitors though, with both teal and wigeon numbers much reduced and only three curlew.

At the 'haul-road flash' there were dozen ringed plovers and redshank and a single dunlin - probably all passage birds. On the beach there were 21 sanderling dodging the crowds of human visitors.

Sanderling - one of 21

A long-tailed duck was on the big pool.

So no new additions to the patch year-list, but a quality days birding nonetheless. 

End of March

So, March is over.

It still feels more like January and spring migration hasn't really started. 

I had a quick wander about the patch this evening, now that the clocks have changed this will be a more regular occurrence. I started with a look on the sea, actually it was more of glance, the south-easterly wind was cold enough to freeze your eyelids shut, so I beat a hasty retreat to the shelter of the dunes. 

The Budge fields still hold plenty of wildfowl and smattering of lapwing, redshank and snipe. The fields look really good for when the garganeys arrive. Two stock doves pottered about the western edge. 

I wandered towards the edge of the big pool and clocked a stunning male marsh harrier, hunting along the northern edge of the pool. The local crows were giving it some stick and it moved off west and then south. A second marsh harrier (female?) was towards East Chevington.

The Haul Road Flash (as I have now christened it) held seven dunlin, redshank and a couple of shelducks.

So for the Patchwork Challenge, I finish March on a pretty disappointing 88 species and 101 points. I will again be miles behind my local rivals.

88 marsh harrier

Three year-ticks

A couple of hours birding the bushes at Druridge tonight from 1800. A text message told me of a whinchat near the entrance, I soon found it, perched on the fence. Whinchat is always a nice spring bonus. (Thanks for the text Dave).

A few wheatears were on the short grass by the road. Sedge warblers have finally arrived (how late?) with at least three singing males tonight. A third year-tick was expected, swift, I'd seen a few today on my travels up the coast so the six or more at Druridge tonight came as no surprise.

Other common migrants included blackcap, whitethroat and chiffchaff. On the beach there were five sanderling, four dunlin and three ringed plover.

After 48 hours of rain, both the Budge fields and the big pool are both brim full. The ditch that drains them was up to the bridge at the Budge screen and running at full-bore onto the beach. I fear most of the sitting lapwings will have been flooded out, hopefully they will re-lay.

If you are planning a visit to the pools this weekend, I would take your wellies.

Fresh Meat

At last some fresh meat at Druridge.

Four new cows have arrived on the Budge Fields, just in the nick of time. They have joined the ponies who haven't left for East Chev yet, so between them they should make an impact, but there's plenty to go at and they'll need to be joined by more of their friends in July.

Keep on grazing, there's plenty to go at

I did an evening territory mapping visit tonight, only because I am too busy to get a morning visit in.

It was funny seeing red-legged partridges at High Chibburn Farm, a year tick, but already dull after the excitement of last years 'Patch ticks'. Lots of birds were carrying food, I wish I had more time to spend to watching them and do some more nest finding.

Offshore a single roseate tern was year-tick, a nice close bird too. One the beach were 3 dunlin and 6 sanderling, all in stunning summer plumage. We were watching sanderling and dunlin last week in Spain so there is still more to come!

120 red-legged partridge
121 roseate tern