Absence makes the heart grow stronger....

Sorry for the lack of blog activity lately. Don't worry, the excitement of the two red-rumped swallows didn't send me over the edge, there are two good reasons.

The first was an excellent birding and mammal watching trip to NE Poland and the second, much more mundane reason was a trapped nerve in my back which debilitated me for the best part of two weeks. Before I round up the latest news from Druridge (there's not much!), here are some photos from Poland. We went to the amazing Bialoweiza Forest NP in the extreme NE of Poland first then to the Biebza marshes. If you haven't been to this area before I can thoroughly recommend it.

Bog alder and spruce forest - home of white-backed woodpeckers

middle-spotted woodpecker at the nest

Pygmy owl (poor quality, nearly dark!)

   

European bison at dawn - worth the 3.30am start

black redstart  - just out of the nest

common cranes

great reed warbler in FULL blast

whiskered tern

white-winged tern

So, back to Druridge. My bad-back literally put me out of action until Monday/Tuesday so no visits at all til then. Even though I am a bit more mobile, I've only managed four short visits to the patch.

Barn owls seem ever-present at the moment, with both parent hunting around the patch from early evening. (I did fear for them the other night when three 'shoot anything that moves' types turned up with air rifles). A male marsh harrier is hunting regularly over the Budge fields too. Two little terns were feeding in the bay, a species I failed to see in 2011.

What is worrying is the total absence of grasshopper warblers - where are they? I spoke to Dave Elliott who hasn't heard any at East Chev either. Is this situation the same across the County?

Today was generally grey, the sun did put in a short appearance in the afternoon. I had a good walk around the patch this morning but didn't see much of note. It wasn't easy to see anything from any of the hides as the grass has now grown up in front of the windows. Normally I would cut this myself, but not with my bad-back! Hopefully NWT are on the case. I spent some time wandering around with the new camera, just trying it out. The light was awful so not much success.

View from the hide - good if you like wildflowers

cuckoo flower or ladies smock

There were fledged grey heron youngsters on the Budge fields. We tried to ring some at the colony before we went to Poland, but couldn't get into the nests. There were eight occupied nests this year, down two from 2011.

Tonight I had a quick look on the see and scan over the patch. The oddest thing was a party of 19 sanderlings, all in breeding plumage, that appeared on the beach from nowhere. The question is...are they late migrants heading north or are they either failed or non-breeders moving back south?

Hopefully normal bogging service will now resume.

PS the patch year-list now stands at 114 (must try harder)

A round up....and a marsh warbler

I've just been too busy to update the blog this weekend, especially on Saturday when I was up for 23 hours!

A brief seawatch on Friday evening produced 3 roseate terns and 2 little terns as well as 7 red throated divers.

On Friday I did another territory mapping survey, again in less than ideal conditions. I arrived at Druridge at 5.30, as had a sea fret, it cleared by 7.40 and then brightened up to be a real scorcher! I'm finding both house sparrows and tree sparrows that nest over by the hamlet are both feeding in the bushes at Druridge, must be a better supply of caterpillars there. Nothing else of great note, there are now three singing whitethroats.

On Saturday, Janet and I were ringing for only the second time this year. A calm morning soon brightened up to another hot day, which brought the plebs flocking down to Druridge with their England flags waving from knackered Corsas - makes you proud!

I had to go to work at 9am, but in total we caught 24 birds (19 new ones and 5 retraps) including our first sedge warbler of the year.

sedge warbler - caught and ringed

We also caught this blackbird which was first ringed in November 2003 as a first year bird, making this chap 7 this year!

Seven year old blackbird

Janet caught this juvenile starling, there are a lot of them about so I am surprised we didn't catch more, Janet wasn't concerned though, seemingly starlings are a pain to ring. I was disappointed, I've never ringed Starling.

juvenile starling

Saturday night ended at a BBQ in Stakeford, I didn't get to bed until 3.30 am, not bad going considering I had been up since 4.30.

I was in the office today when I got a call from Steve Holliday, who was sure he had a marsh warbler singing by the path to the hides. I called in on the way home and soon heard it singing, imitating a swallow at first, from the willows behind the bund.

It only sung intermittently and flew out of cover, briefly, once, in the hour and half I was there. this is my second marsh warbler for Druridge, the first was on the 1st of June 2008, which sang for three days by the Budge Screen.

Whilst I was bored, I took these shots...

Cercopsis vulnerata a red and black type of froghopper

northern marsh orchid

unidentified spider

Any thoughts on this spider?

123 little tern
124 roseate tern
125 marsh warbler

Sunday Evening

Sunday evening.....my first visit to Druridge this weekend, bad form!

Friday was too wet and I was too busy on Saturday so we had to go tonight. The incredible amount of rain that fell on Friday has filled all the pools up, even the bare earth in front of the little hide......and....it brought it waders.

A rapid transformation on the budge fields

When we arrived there were four greenshanks on the Budge fields, which were soon put up by something.

From the little hide there were 7 snipe and a greenshank. The resident lapwings had there chicks out on the fresh muddy edges.

The big pools was full too, the rocks and promontories under water, but there waders here too, three common sands and a greenshank.

common sandpiper from the Oddie hide

We then had a look on the sea, none of the bonxies reported over the weekend. Lots of tern activity though including at least five roseys and three little terns. An adult little gull flew south too.

Now I have an admission to make, this post http://ipinswildlifeblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/busy-busy-week.html showed pictures of what I thought were six spot burnet moths, I was wrong, they are actually five spot burnet moths. Six spots show two very obvious red blotches at the end of the wings whereas five spots have one big blotch, sometimes with an obvious vein through it. So the majority, if not all, on the dunes at the moment are five spot burnets.

five spot burnet moth on ragwort

busy, busy week

It's been an incredibly busy week since my last post, I've been to Ireland with work which included a trip to the Causeway Coast and Binevenagh AONB in North Antrim, very nice bit of coastline it is too..

Causeway Coast near Giant's Causeway

When I got back we did a farm survey over at Carraw Farm on Hadrian's Wall, on Saturday afternoon I went ringing mute swan cygnets with the Hanmer family, very entertaining.

Him and his younguns, waiting to be ringed at Lee Moor Farm

Is that a swan sticking out of your arse or are you just pleased to see me?

flat-packed swan, Ikea bags make handy swan weighing devices.

And when the pacific golden plover was flying around East Chev, very nearly on my patch I was on my way to theatre in Sunderland. Add to this making jam and cakes, going to a two year olds birthday party, identifying that I have 'onion white-rot' and there is no cure, it didn't leave much time to go to Druridge.

On the short visits to Druridge there wasn't much to report, I spent all of Friday's visit strimming the net rides...

Yesterday we had a dark green fritillary butterfly on the track to the Oddie Hide (still there tonight), this is the first DGF I have seen at Druridge for a few years.

We also saw a barred straw moth by the Budge screen.

In the dunes there are hundreds of six-spot burnett months this year and lots of caterpillars too, there were 8 on this one thistle flower.

To make up for not seeing the pacific golden plover at Chev, I did get two year-ticks today at Druridge, firstly this afternoon, a fly-by little tern offshore.

I went back down to Druridge tonight to finish strimming in front of the hides, so the otter-spotters can see out.

As I had scared everything of the pools, I went to look offshore, scanning a small gull roost on the beach, I picked up a colour-ringed second summer med gull, the cr was red with white text, I thought I could make out a 'P' on it, which would make it polish, sadly I couldn't read the rest.

So, if anyone reading this is an NTBC member waiting for their monthly bulletin, that'll be my fault as my section is still not finished, there's simply not enough hours in the day!

120 little tern

121 Mediterranean gull