Surprise surprise - not one but two!

No patchwatching this morning. We decided to give our ringing site at Lynemouth a bash instead and we are doubly pleased we did.

Before checking our nets for the third time, I decided to have wander up to the 'poo filters' to see if anything was about, Janet hates the smell but decided to join me. As we approached, a flock of hirundines was feeding in front of us, with my naked eye I immediately spotted something a bit bigger in amongst them. When I lifted my bins I had a stonking red-rumped swallow only 20 foot away from away me, Janet was quickly on to it too.

Of course I had no camera with me, the new DSLR and my mobile phone were in the car...and I'd only brought the 50mm lens - useless! I dashed back to the car and phoned out the news, returning to the poo pits as I did so. I was still phoning out the news when Janet said "it's landed on the roof [of the nearby building]"..it couldn't have I was still watching it. It was then we realised we were watching TWO red-rumped swallows.

Once the news was out, I dashed home for a bigger lens and managed a few record shots.

Underside view showing diagnostic black vent/undertail coverts and rusty coloured ear coverts

This shot shows red-brown band behind head and obvious pale rump with a narrow rusty band nearest to the body.

Another shot of the underside showing rusty colouredsides to the head

The only shot I got of the two in the same frame.

A decent sized twitch assembled on the coast road, it was a Northumberland-tick for many local birdwatchers including me, in fact the pair had doubled my British tally.

It was soon back to reality for us though, nets needed checking and birds needed to be ringed. We had a successful mornings ringing too with a good catch of warblers and some local breeders.

My luck didn't continue this afternoon, I went to Druridge and saw bugger all.

Sunday afternoon

I had high hopes of a patch-tick this afternoon.

After spending this morning sorting out mist-net rides at Lynemouth sewage works, I headed up to Bamburgh to help move some unused barn owl boxes. Just behind Bamburgh village we found a ring ouzel, a nice find, it's ages since I've seen a coastal ring ouzel.

As well as this one at Bamburgh, there has been a few coastal records reported on RBA, enough to spur me on to go and find myself a Druridge ring ouzel - which would be a patch-first for me.

My positive thinking soon dwindled as I scoured likely habitat on the patch without any luck...maybe I should have checked around the hamlet........ or the Druridge bushes.....or.....

So no patch-tick, but a couple of welcome year-birds, at least three singing willow warblers and a little egret on the Budge fields. The short-eared owl that's been around for months is still on the patch.

Short-eared owl

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.