Someone has turned the volume down!

I squeezed a quick hours walk around the patch before work this morning, just up to the turning circle and south as far as the Budge screen but compared to recent mornings it was like someone had turned the volume down.

There were still a few warblers singing - willow, chiffy and sedge, the odd wren and meadow pipits and reed bunting in the dunes but otherwise birds have fallen silent. A song thrush (a scarce breeder at Druridge) hadn't got the memo and belted out his repetitive song the whole time I was there.

Even at 8am there were plenty of butterflies on the wing - large skippers, ringlets, speckled woods and red admirals as well as lots of blue-tailed damselflies.

large skipper

Speckled wood - looking a bit worn now

Ringlet

There were a few of these latticed heath moths basking in the sunshine too.

latticed heath

Other than the aforementioned warblers and stuff, a family party of magpies were making a row up by the turning circle and 40-50 swifts fed low, just over the bushes. As I headed south a little egret flew over and from the Budge screen there were two spoonbills, fast asleep as usual. There were also at least 20 black-tailed godwits, most of which were the islandica subspecies. A couple of ringed plover fed on the mud.

Little egret headed north overhead

As I headed for home a grasshopper warbler piped-up from the dunes and started to reel. It's not quite autumn yet.

eBird list here

Great tit youth

Ringing session

I've got lots of things going on at the minute so I am finding difficult too get our birding never mind finding time to update my blog. This lack of time means that I still haven't seen yellow-browed warbler on the patch this autumn, there's been plenty of them!

I did find the time for a ringing session today. The weather has been great for ringing the whole week and it has been really frustrating not being able to get out, so it was good to get a session in today.

It was calm and cloudy this morning with no fog or heavy dew like previous mornings, it was nice not have to wear waterproof trousers all day. The wind has been out of the east, but the calm, dry conditions hasn't dropped any migrants onto the east coast, other than the yellow-browed warblers.

goldcrest (male)

We caught a few migrants including song thrushes, robins, chiffchaffs, a blackcap and a few goldcrests. We caught some of the huge goldfinch flock that is moving around Druridge at the moment (which also contains greenfiches, siskins, redpolls and linnets) and a tit flock.

A first autumn male reed bunting with a ring on it was interesting as it wasn't one of our rings, a quick check with Ian Fisher confirmed that he had ringed as a juvenile at East Chevington back in August.

Reed bunting from East Chevington

Whilst ringing there was a few small skeins of pink-footed geese, mostly headed south and group of five barnacle geese headed north. A couple of vocal mistle thrushes were noted, a proper autumn bird on the patch.

At least two different yellow-browed warblers had been seen, one by a visiting birder just off the track to the Oddie hide and Jonathon Farooqi had found on in the plantation.

The forecast for the week ahead is interesting with some rain and south-easterly winds and then the tail end of hurricane Joaquin may or may not come our way.

October ends, November begins

So that was October.... It flew by - and now we're into November. Autumn is running out.

I've been scanning the pressure charts all week, things were changing, but by Wednesday afternoon I had decided to take Thursday off work. A good decision as the easterly wind and overnight rain brought a lot of migrants in. It wasn't a classic fall, or even a fall, but it was exciting.

A bright start gave way to a short spell of rain. Once that cleared, I got out for a proper wander. By now, thrushes were piling overhead, in flocks of about 70-100, mainly redwings with a few fieldfares. They were mostly high and just kept going west. Some of the later arrivals rested on top of the bushes for a while but were soon off, inland.There were a handful of woodcock in the bushes, exploding out as  walked through.

The forecast had been for strong winds, but they didn't materialise, so I could have had some nets up, but it was too late. It was unseasonably mild, 18 degrees C according to the car. There had been an influx of blackbirds, but no song thrushes and there were plenty of wrens, robins and dunnocks.

I saw my first bullfinch of the year, just a fly-through,a male, piping as it went. Bullfinch is a scarce bird at Druridge, not annual by any means.

On the pool, there had been a inundation of goldeneye, I counted at least 26 and six black-tailed godwits flew over calling.

No birding on Saturday due to the Toon being at home with an early kick-off which all led to a later start this morning.

There was still a couple of woodcock about and three song thrushes in the plantation were indicative of an over-night arrival. There were one or two redwings still and a handful of blackbirds, but they've mainly headed out west.

The water rails have been very vocal the last few days, on the edge of the big pool by the phragmites bed. I spooked one, a juvenile, which flew off without calling.

169 bullfinch

PWC Score 261

RBF

I found a patch mega this afternoon - red-breasted flycatcher.

I found it late afternoon in the plantation, a first year bird by the look of it, no orange on the throat, just a buffy wash on the throat, upper-breast and flanks. When I fist got onto it, it was flitting around in the pines, perching occasionally, flicking its wings, often obscured. When it did perch out, my crap ability with my camera let me down again as I couldn't get the auto-focus to find it amongst the background pine twigs.

For a flycatcher, it was very illusive, disappearing at times completely, relocated by its rattling call. 

Cracking bird.

This was my second RBF at Druridge, the first one was back in September 2007 when Janet caught one in her nets http://ipinswildlifeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2007/09/patch-tick.html

I had originally intended to put a high-tide seawatch in this afternoon, until texts from my friend Steely on the Farne Islands with tales of migrants arriving convinced me the bushes were a better option.

We were ringing this morning. It was quite quiet in the bushes, with a lot of birds seemingly moved out overnight. The highlight was catching some meadow pipits, nine in all, in one of our more open nets.

meadow pipit

We caught our first song thrush on the autumn but only one warbler, a chiffchaff.

156 red-breasted flycatcher

PWC Score 225

End of September...

The last day of September, Autumn is slipping away into winter and my year-list for the patch is well down on what it should be.

On Wednesday I did pre and post-work visits to the patch. On Wednesday morning, there had been an obvious overnight arrival of common migrants, song thrush were the most numerous with 50-60 passing through. There were ten+ redstart, lesser and common whitethroats, garden warbler  15+ blackcap, ten+ chiffchaff, two willow warbler and eight or more goldcrest. Also newly arrived were a party of eight lesser redpolls and six siskin.

lesser whitethroat

Most frustrating though was the one that got away. A bunting, facing me, with a pale, almost white belly but with strong streaking on the flanks, it turned it's head to show orangey-brown cheeks then promptly flew off, never to be seen again. I would bet my mortgage it was a little bunting but I didn't get enough on it to be sure. I didn't catch up with the little bunting that Janet caught in 2005.

Also of note was another bonxie, flying east from the land towards the sea, my second of the week and a steady passage of skylarks still passing overhead and this roe deer which was not shy at all.

roe deer

By Wednesday afternoon there had been a clear-out. Only two or three song thrush remained and no redstarts, everything had moved on. Bob Biggs had a knot on the flooded fields in front of the cottages which was year-tick.

Today was quiet as I dodged the showers. There were still six redpolls hanging about and a few chiffchaffs. Two grey plover flying west, calling, were also of note. There were hundreds of dragonflies on the wing today, especially in sheltered areas of tall vegetation.

It rained again so I thought I would call at Cresswell Pond to have a look at the Long-billed Dowitcher that had been reported but when I got there and saw 15 cars at the end of the track I kept going.

Am I getting old and grumpy? I used to enjoy the 'craic' in the Cresswell Pond Hide on a Sunday morning, now the thought of a hide full of other birders makes me run the other way. Has birding (and birders) changed or it just me?

136 lesser whitethroat
137 redstart
138 lesser redpoll
139 knot

Blue Tits not Bluetails

Eleven and a half hours! That's how long I spent at Druridge today - unhealthy obsession? - probably!

No bluetails for us, we had a few blue tits though, still we're not complaining, our ringing session netted us 62 birds - not bad considering we only had four nets up.

The morning started quite damp, with a ESE wind, we were at Druridge before first light (not bad considering we were at chez Biggs til midnight - there were redwings going overhead then!), being so damp we only put the most northerly nets up which are the best for catching stuff after a fall.

We caught nothing amazingly rare, not even scarce, just good numbers of some common migrants. Robins were by far and away the most numerous. goldfinches, long-tailed tits, blackbirds, song thrushes and goldcrests also featured heavily.

We also controlled a blue tit, a first calendar year bird, sporting a newish looking ring, so it's probably just come from Hauxley.

Not many pictures of ringed birds - it was a bit gloomy, but here is a nice chiffy and a rather drab looking siskin, but it was our first of the year.

drab siskin

nice chiffy

We packed in ringing around half past two, when the wind picked up. Time for some real birding!

As we had been ringing at the north end, I checked the bushes and plantation by the entrance (whilst Janet got me a tremendous bacon, potato and onion pasty from the Widdrington Farm Shop), then the Budge Screen before walking along the Channel to the path. Picking up blackcap, redstart, pied flycatcher and whinchat along the way, with lots more robins, song thrushes, blackbirds, chaffinches and goldcrests.

In one tiny alder, all out on it's own by the edge of the pool, I had three chiffchaffs and a garden warbler, then this other warbler flew in, chiffchaff sized, but very dark, then it promptly flew out again, back into the thick bushes.....gone!

Back in the bushes I got onto my second barred warbler of the year, this one was lumbering about in the alders.

barred warbler

Other highlights of the day included  a water rail flying out from under my feet, two lapland buntings over, south, c10 swallows and 50 redwings (how come we didn't catch any?)

We'll be back ringing again in the morning and will be putting a net up where the 'dark phyllosc' disappeared to.

Ringing totals for today:

robin 18
goldfinch 7
dunnock 2 + 1 retrap
coal tit 1 + 1 retrap
blue tit 2 + 1 control
long-tailed tit 6
chiffchaff 3
blackbird 6
song thrush 5
chaffinch 2
goldcrest 4
siskin 1
reed bunting 2

150 Siskin

Nets up, Nets down

We were down at Druridge before dawn this morning, but a soon as the nets were up they had to come back down as the rain set in and it looks as though it is here for the day. We caught one bird - robin.

Yesterday was a different matter however, many birds were still at Druridge after the midweek fall so we caught a good few birds, well, Janet did, I had to leave at 9.15 to go to work. Both at Druridge and at Seahouses, there was a continual movement of skylarks overhead.

The good fall of song thrushes was evident, this was the first of eight.

song thrush

Dunnocks and robins were still about and a few warblers were moving through the bushes but we didn't catch many, this blackcap and chiffchaff along with a reed warbler were the only ones caught. The last image is a goldcrest, we only caught one which is one more than we caught last year.

chiffchaff

blackcap

goldcrest

This great tit (or should be grey tit) was an interesting one, a partial leucistic bird, which had a generally greyer appearance with virtually a white tail and a light grey rump - very odd.

leucistic great tit

No sign of last weeks barred warbler now, this rain may drop coasting birds in,  so it will defo be worth a look down at Druridge on Monday, meanwhile I'm off to the pub to watch the footie.

Ringing totals:

song thrush 8

robin 4 (and one today)

blue tit 3 (+1 retrap)

goldcrest 1

dunnock 3

chaffinch 3

blackcap 1

blackbird 2 (+1 retrap)

great tit 1

wren 1

reed warbler 1

chiffchaff 1

coal tit 1