Last gasps of autumn

The forecast didn't look too promising for this weekend and I felt like autumn was slipping away without a final finale. However, on Thursday things started to look better, with an easterly and some good seawatching. Instead of seawatching, I was sat in my office in zoom meetings all day.

Friday

As there looked to be a slim chance of a late migrant or two, I took a flyer on Friday afternoon and headed to the patch with Janet. We started with a look on the sea but it was quiet, a bonxie going south, only my second of the year, was the highlight. Not an auk in sight. Janet found a snow bunting on the beach which was a year-tick.

Female snow bunting in poor light

Same bird, different pose

We headed for the bushes, checking the area around the start of the path to the hides first. A female blackcap was a good start. I got onto a small bird flitting about in the branches, above the blackcap - I called 'yellow-browed warbler' to get Janet onto it, but it had flitted off. Even though I had the briefest views - Strong wing-bar and supercillium, pale tips to darker secondary feathers, it wasn't right for a yellow-brow. It was duller than a yellow-browed, almost with a grey cast. Hume's warbler sprang to mind but I needed better views to be sure and Janet needed to see it. I put the news out as 'a probable'.

We didn't have to wait long, as the bird re-appeared to the right and gave tantalizingly brief views as it flitted quickly through the branches. It had a colder, greyer look to it than a YBW, the wing bar and the supercilium were more off-white without yellow tones and the bill and legs appeared to be dark. It hadn't called at this stage, but we were both confident that it was Hume's and put the news out.

A 'bird wave' of tits and goldcrests came through, which also brought a willow tit and chiffchaff to the party. We lost the warbler in the melee, when we refound it, it was further right and it flew and called - a short, sharp two-tone call, not like yellow-browed's more drawn out 'twoo-eeee'. It did this twice before flying off south. 

We suspected it might have gone south with the tit flock, so I headed down towards the Budge hide but couldn't relocate it. Two ruff were on the fields and water rails were calling. We couldn't relocate the warbler by dusk so headed home. I would be back in the morning.

I had a likely Hume's warbler many years ago by the Budge hide. It's in a long-lost notebook and was never submitted, so technically not a new bird for the patch. I've seen three others in the county, at Whitley Bay (2006), Lynemouth Power Station (2002) and East Chevington (2001). 

Robin - ever-present and singing a mournful autumn tune

Saturday

I got down to the patch at about 9.30. A handful of birders including Ashington Gary and Paul from Gateshead were loitering on the path but had not seen the bird, I headed north for a look through bushes. Two female long-tailed ducks were on Druridge Pool. With no further sign, I headed south to the Budge hide and checked the bushes there. It was quiet, so I checked the Budge fields and picked up a water pipit on call, which I eventually found feeding on wet grassland to the left of the hide. Bonus!

I wandered north through the bushes, when a tit flock came through and I picked up a firecrest amongst them. Nice. This was my third of the year on the patch! The flock headed south, so I followed them. I called ADMc as I know he likes a firecrest. Andy, Paul, Bob and Steve arrived - the bird was tricky to pin down, but they all got onto it eventually. 

Not sure this photo will make the Annual Report.

Whilst scanning for the firecrest, I found yesterday's Hume's warbler in a big willow. It was really tough to get people on it before it flew north over the path with some long-tailed tits. I found it again in a lower willow but it was lost to view after that and not seen again. I'm not sure how many people saw it - So frustrating!

A treecreeper was added to the day list - a scarce species on the patch.

I think that might be autumn over...

Strokes of luck

Several strokes of luck led to a full-fat patch tick today  -  Pallas's leaf warbler

Firstly  - I decided to take today off work today instead of next Friday

Secondly - When news broke of a Radde's Warbler at Newbiggin-by-the-Sea and Wood lark at Newton, I stuck to my plan and birded the patch

Thirdly - I bumped into Darren Woodhead and his son Corin.

I set out, as planned, to bird the patch, I was there for 7.40 and it was just light but foggy. I followed my usual plan of attack, to work the bushes by the entrance and the plantation before heading north.

Not long out of the car, I got onto a classic Siberian (tristis) chiff, grey above, green in the wings and off-white below, not warm at all. And it called a thin 'toot'.

Two birders, that I'd not seen before, arrived shortly after me and started birding the plantation. They also had a sibe, when I went into the plantation, it also called - 'toot'  - two birds (?). They were on a yellow-browed warbler. Darren and Corin Woodhead from Lothian. I recognised Darren - and now I know from where - I've often admired his artwork on my annual trips to Birdfair.

record shot of Yellow-browed warbler

Yellow-browed warbler

I spent the next hour or so in the plantation with repeated views of the yellow-browed, lots of crests, robins, wrens and a steady trickle of skylarks overhead and a group of c25 siskin south. Four brambling dropped in and fed for a while. 

Brambling

Back at the 'entrance bushes' I was watching a yellow-browed when a second bird called from the sycamore at the plantation- two. Redwings came in overhead. News broke of a Radde's warbler at Newbiggin - I ignored it. 

I moved up to the middle plantation, where Darren and Corin were scouring the trees. I joined them, Darren and I were looking through the pines and sycamores, but Corin was watching the scattered scrub to the north and exclaimed suddenly  'Pallas's'!

mega-cropped record shot of Pallas's leaf warbler in flight -  6400 ISO

We got straight onto it - a Siberian gem, flitting around a crab apple tree. A patch tick for me and a great find for Corin. We enjoyed the bird for a good while before it flitted off. ADMc and others joined us, Whilst scouring the goldcrests for the Pallas's, I got briefly onto a firecrest, thankfully it showed on and off for the next 30 minutes, as did the the Pallas's. Another yellow-browed warbler was calling in the bushes to the north. 

Further north I found another firecrest in a small flock of crests and tits behind the Budge hide. 

Up at the path to the hides, by the timber screen, a 'bird wave' passed through with a long-tailed tit flock. There were at least five chiffchaffs around that area. This one has me stumped though - not a classic Sibe, I thought, too 'warm' but also too brown for a bog standard collybita. I know that Sibe's can be variable though and light plays a huge part.  It didn't call. Not sure on this one...

'brown' chiff

same bird

'Bog-standard Chiff'

I heard a lapland bunting calling, it passed overhead behind three skylarks, all going south. A flock of about 18 lesser redpoll fed in the alders and I found a few more siskin further north before I headed home. 

lots of these miserable-looking birds 

and these

a few of these

This afternoon, I acquiesced and went to the Ash Lagoon Banks at Newbiggin to look for the Radde's. No luck there, although others claimed it, but a roosting long-eared owl was worth the trip and new for the5km2 patch. 

I'll be back out again tomorrow. 

The easterly wind that just keeps giving...

The wind has been out of the east for well over a week now and it just keeps bringing the birds. I didn't manage to get onto the patch during week because of work, other than a quick look around the plantation on Thursday evening when I saw and heard a siberian chiffhcaff (tristis) in the willows by the entrance. It looked very drab compared to the collybita that was in the same tree, It's call was really obvious - quite a sharp, almost monosyllabic 'peep' which it did frequently.

Not really being one for twitching, I decided against heading south to see any of the Siberian Accentors that have turned up and concentrated on the patch (and football) instead. There will be one in the county by the end of the week...

Saturday morning was damp, with light rain/mizzle most of the morning, I started in the plantation and work north towards the 'Mike Carr Path'. There had been a big arrival of birds on Friday (I was on Holy Island and it was 'hotching') and it looked like little had cleared out in the foul weather and more birds were arriving with flocks of thrushes being obvious - blackbirds, redwings and song thrushes did drop in, the fieldfares perched on treetops before moving off inland quite quickly. Goldcrests and robins were really obvious but I couldn't find anything rarer amongst them.

robin

A single male brambling was in the willows and few siskins were seen towards the Budge screen. From the bushes, I heard some commotion of the Budge fields and looked across to see a juvenile marsh harrier coming through - it pounced on something and stayed down - presumably eating what it had caught. Eventually I had to drag myself away to go to the match.

This morning I started in the plantation where I had a group of six mealy redpolls fly in together and perch before moving on - these are the first mealies I have had on the patch since 2005! Moving on north through the bushes there were still huge numbers of goldcrests - I estimated 80-100 and plenty of thrushes, even some fieldfare were still feeding on hawthorn and whitebeam berries.

A kingfisher called and I got onto it flying north over the Budge fields -  a good year for a very scarce species on the patch.

Siskin, lesser redpolls, goldfinches and brambling were roaming about the alders. As I got to the Mike Carr path it had started to rain and I thought about heading home for lunch, luckily I couldn't drag myself away and got onto a firecrest on the edge of the path, but I was looking through the bushes at it - when I was repositioning myself to try and get a photo a male sparrowhawk shot through and scattered everything and I couldn't find it in increasingly heavy rain - time for lunch.

These two large woodpigeon young were still in the nest

The rain stopped by 2pm and I was back on the patch by 2.30 and headed for the area that the firecrest was in. The first bird I saw was a lesser whitethroat - a species I had given up on this year. I didn't get long on the bird before it flew off, not even time to reach for the camera. Superficially the upperparts appeared brown, the head was grey and the dark 'mask' was obvious but not striking. I would have loved to had more time on this bird and got some photos but it vanished and I couldn't relocate it. Onwards...

In the same area I came across a willow warbler, quite late for this species and my latest ever record on the patch. Here it is...

Willow warbler

I spent some time by the low whitebeams and watched a constant stream of goldcrests coming through with at least three chiffchaffs and then a strip warbler - not as stripy as I was hoping for though - a yellow-browed warbler - not it's more flashy cousin that I was hoping for,,,

I had to leave the warblers to do my WeBS count before it got dark. five black-tailed godwit, one ruff and a couple of little egret of note. This cormorant was nice in the setting sun.

Cormorant

The addition of brambling, mealy redpoll, firecrest and lesser whitethroat takes my year list 170 - one off my record tally of 171 in 2013 and 2014. Could this be a record breaking year?