Med Gull Madness

 After a walk up to north end of the patch and back on Friday after work, I did a bit of an evening seawatch , until it was nearly dusk. 

It was relatively quiet, but there were a couple of close scoter flocks, numbering around 350 birds combined, so I went through them looking for a velvet or better. Three great-crested grebes and a red-throated diver were I could manage. Interestingly, the scoter flock was made up of over 95% drakes. 

Otherwise, a few terns and gannets... that is, until I noticed a couple of Mediterranean gulls flying south and then for some reason, I turned to look inland to see a small flock of Meds head south behind me, they were soon followed by another flock of 25 birds, they were all flying south, over the reserve, as far away as the shelterbelt. Several more flocks followed and they were still passing, in small numbers by the time I left. My final count was 72, there were also 15, including 5 juveniles, in the gull roost on the beach.

One of the passing Meds at dusk

I can only assume that they had been feeding in fields north and west of Druridge and headed south to roost at Lynemouth or Newbiggin. 

There were 48 sanderling on the beach, the adults molting out of breeding plumage. 

Sanderlings

On Saturday, it was a still and humid evening. Janet and I had a walk along the beach, there were plenty of Sandwich terns offshore including a few juveniles which is promising. 

Sandwich Tern

Sandwich Tern

There was big southerly passage of sand martins, we counted at least 200 passing through. 

Sand Martin

Today (Sunday), there was a northerly wind for most of the day, so I tried an afternoon seawatch but it was quiet. 15 Manx went north and there were at least 8 Roseate terns offshore. A flock of about 30 southbound redshanks were noteworthy.

Here are some photos of the stonechat family in the dunes. 

Male stonechat

Female

Juvenile

Gone West

The wind had gone back into the west and with it some of the excitement of birding the patch, when there's a hint of an easterly at this time you just never know what will turn up, but after a couple of days of westerlies anticipation levels wain a bit.

My morning walks this week have been dominated by the Pink-footed Geese that have been roosting on the Budge fields - about 3000 of them are on the water at first light but they soon lift and head off south to feed. A single Yellow-browed Warbler hung on until Tuesday, it was ringed so presumably the bird we ringed on 16th it was very vocal and made a couple of sound recording of it. 

Goldfinch feeding on Alder cones

Reed Bunting - at least the twig is sharp

After work on Friday evening I checked the bushes to the north. I had the briefest views of Sylvia warbler, as soon as I had my bins on it, it flew and I couldn't relocate it. The upperparts had too much rufous-brown in them for the lesser whitethroats I've been watching, my guess would be Whitethroat but it is very late for them 

Further north, I got onto a Phylloscopus warbler, initial views showed a very broad supercillium and then I lost it, I phoned Janet as it was an interesting bird. I got back onto it with limited views but it showed a peachyness to the under-parts but olive-green above and then it called - Tristis Chiffchaff!

It wasn't very vocal, only calling a few times and I never managed to record it, despite that it was nearly dark, I did get some record shots.

Siberian Chiff

You can make out the light peachy-wash under the tail in this shot

The sky was a fiery orange away to the west at sunset. 

Sunset over the big pool

Sunset over the big pool

And fire in the sky

Lapwings flying south at dusk

Yesterday I had another evening walk and the highlights were another Treecreeper - that's three for the year now, I'd previously only seen six since 1994, Water Rail and Great-spotted Woodpecker.

List here

Today, Janet and I had walk along the Coal Road, inland to the Preceptory and back by High Chibburn and Druridge Farm. It was very windy and we didn't see much of note (list here) but here are some photos.

A small group of Redshank on the fields

Coming in to land

Rook

It looks like south-westerly winds are going to dominate until at least next weekend.

Could it be spring?

Could it be Spring?

It felt like it this afternoon but down on the patch first thing it was a cold and frosty start. -1 degrees C but hardly a breeze and a lovely white frost.

Frosty start

Despite the cold, spring was in the air for the stonechats as they chased each other around the turning circle and for the skylarks who sang out above my head. Towards Chibburn lapwings were tumbling - it is spring y'know!

One  the stonechats - pausing for a while before resuming his courtship

Out in the fields about 780 pink-footed geese grazed - it's still winter...

I continued down to the Budge screen where it was nice to catch up with ADMc who was counting the grey herons, he'd got to 29 which is an impressive count for the patch and might indicate a good breeding season ahead - they'll be on eggs soon.

The other 'Budge' highlights included the three almost resident ruff, one of which is very lucky to be still with us. Andy called out a peregrine speeding low, north, it flushed the waders and ducks before gaining some height to stoop on one of the ruff, the ruff darted left and avoided being breakfast.

The three ruff coming back in to land - one of them very lucky to be there!

There weren't many wader s on the Budge in contrast to Saturday when there 153 redshank, 16 dunlin and 53 curlew.

One of Saturday's 153 redshank

In the fields beyond the Budge were more geese, pink-foots mostly but a scan through them produced three Eurasian white-fronts. Disturbed by something, all of the geese got up and estimated 1000 or so, added to my 780 earlier by the haul road,  I jotted down 'c1700'.

Shoveler numbers are still good - I estimated 41.

With chores to do I, I left Andy chatting to Marty Anderson and headed home. One of my more enjoyable chores was to clean out and check our 30 or so tree sparrow boxes at Ellington Pond Nature Reserve. Two water rails weren't put out by my presence and chased each other around the pond-margins squealing like pigs!

Two views of carrion crows

Coot from Saturday

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. 

A first for Druridge?

On my visit to Druridge yesterday I might have seen a first for the patch - an inland turnstone.

I'm saying inland, it was in the field west of the Budge fields, which is quite inland for a turnstone. It was feeding with some redshank, curlew and lapwings and it wasn't even high tide. Normally, the only turnstones at Druridge are fly-by birds pushed off either Snab Point or Hauxley rocks at high tide. Very, very occasionally they are on the beach.

The 'turnstone' field was quite good for waders with 91 curlew, 41 redshank and 76 lapwing, there was also a small flock of 20 odd fieldfare with a single redwing.

Two kestrels were still about the patch and a handful of lesser redpolls moved through the alders.

My patch year-list for 2012 currently stands at 146, ten off my usual year tally. I will be very lucky to get another year tick before I go on holiday on 28th December - my worst finish in years is on the cards.

WeBS Saturday

I did my WeBS count today, a day early, because I have a rather important football match to go to tomorrow. I'm already starting to get nervous, I hate derby days. The buses leave St James' at 10am, we've found a pub that opens at 9 so we can get a couple of nerve settlers in before we set off.

No bitterns today, or yesterday when I checked at first light....humph.

There was lots of wildfowl on the Budge fields, mainly wigeon, teal and mallard. Shoveler, gadwall, goldeneye and tufted duck were year-ticks.

Top counts were:

teal 226
wigeon 197
mallard 78
redshank 41
lapwing 58

It was very windy, force 4-5, from the west which made the big pool very choppy, giving the four coots cowering in the Phragmites bed, the place to themselves.

Nothing much else to report

51 shoveler
52 tufted duck
53 gadwall
54 goldeneye

The Thaw

The snow has virtually all gone from the coast now, the fields are all holding water and the Dunbar burn is running at 'full howk' over the beach.

I only had a hour or so on the patch this afternoon, trying to get out between the showers. The wet fields all had waders in them, mostly redshank and curlew and in the fields to the north there were at least 1600 pink-feets, which flew over the patch after some shots were fired, so much for shooting bans.

Pink-footed Geese

Other birds are concentrating on feeding up after the snow, not really bothered where they do it, there was family of mute swan and a dozen redshank right by the side of the road