What's wrong with Druridge Pools?

What is wrong with Druridge Pools?

Before you switch off, this isn't a rant about the lack of grazing.

Mr (or Mrs) Greater Yellowlegs mustn't like the look of something. It has been commuting between Hauxley, Druridge Bay Country Park, Chev and Cresswell Pond for the last three weeks, so it must be flying over Druridge Pools, why has it never landed?

I've just looked its movements up on the RBA website and it has never been reported from Druridge, so I am presuming it hasn't been seen there - unless somebody knows otherwise (do let me know). Today, it was a stones-throw away, on a small flash pool just north of Hemscotthill Farm. How frustrating! I could see the twitchers watching it from the little hide. Is this as close as I am going to get to it? The chances of seeing it fly over as it commutes along the bay are very, very slim.

The water level on the big pool is as low as it has been all year, so there is loads of 'edge'. Three redshanks thought it good enough this afternoon, so why not a yellowlegs. Maybe it's a snob, come from Boston or New England and doesn't like the look of down-trodden, rough-around-the-edges Druridge pools?

My mood was lightened by a year-tick, snow buntings at long last. Six of them flew off from the beach over the dunes towards the big pool. A patch-record was also broken today with a mahooosive count of 21 collared doves at High Chibburn Farm, easily smashing the previous total.

There was a huge flock of mixed finches on Hemscotthill links, including about 60 twite, certainly worth a scan through them if your passing.

Gripped

I've not spent much time at Druridge this weekend....

On Friday morning, I had a couple of hours pre-work birding. It was a pretty miserable morning and there were few birds about. I tramped the beach and other likely snow bunting habitat with no success.

On Saturday it was too windy to put the nets up,  we were just about to head to Druridge when the RBA Mega alert went off...it's bound to be in Cornwall we thought... Probable GreaterYellowlegs, East Chevington... quickly followed by a call from Blakey to confirm it. When we got there it had just flown onto south pool, with no visible edge. It was spotted flying back onto the north pool and we were soon enjoying great views of it on the edge of the pool. Superb!

A County and Western Pally tick for me.

Whilst we were watching the yellowlegs, I got a message from Choppington's finest wildlife guide, to tell me he had just seen a nuthatch at Druridge...GRIPPED! Nuthatch would be a patch-tick for me. MSK wasn't as keen to gloat when I told him what we were watching!

Would I swap a greater yellowlegs at East Chev for a nuthatch at Druridge? Probably not.....

To wet to ring today and probably just as well, as one of the ringing team had too much to drink the previous night and for once, it wasn't me!!! We had a wander around Lynemouth Sewage Works in the mizzle. We need to find a way to catch pied wags, there were 18-20 on the filter beds (nice!). As we checked out potential net rides, a few blackbirds and robins moved through as well as a blackcap. Lynemouth is really hard to bird as the willow is so dense, I think ringing will be the only way to reveal what is really lurking in there.

Hopefully, if the weather behaves, we'll be ringing there tomorrow morning.