A Bit Blowey

Its been bit windy up here over the last few days, I took friday off work with the thought of a bit of birding, instead I stayed in and watched my greenhouse blow away......what a piece of crap!

Flat-packed greenhouse

It calmed a bit yesterday, but the ringing group had a work party (these two words should never appear in the same sentence in my opinion!) day at Hauxley ringing station, so I spent the day felling trees. It was windy again today, but calmed down a bit over lunchtime and got out to be a really nice day. I met Janet and Kevin from the National Trust down at Dru to look at how the Trust coppicing in the woodland can benefit our ringing activities, we also had a good wander about the patch. The recent hurricanes have left some nice sand-sculptures on the beach and have also blown all of my pin-head oats away...

Had a nice Merlin (67) at the north end, about 60 goldfinch and 6 redwing in the bushes. Offshore were 5-6 red-throated divers and lots of gulls. From the budge screen, the wet meadows are now very wet indeed, with a lot of teal and 4 curlew also had the merlin flying north.

Site Meeting

Yesterday, I had a site meeting at the Pools with Chief Exec. of NWT, very useful indeed, so hopefully we'll see some improved management over the next few years, most importantly, proper grazing of the wet meadows and loads of breeding and passage waders.

Anyhoo, this gave the opportunity to wander aboot the patch, firstly I checked the mouth of the Dunbar Burn, which was flowing at full pelt for the first time in ages, I have put some pin-head oats out down here to try and attract snow bunts.

Dunbar Burn at full howk

Did the pine plantation next, there was a covey of 10 grey partridge (year tick No. 66) in the field and a flock of 70 twite, which landed in the lone sycamore by the fence, also 3 song thrush. A flock of about 60 goldfinches and 20 greenfinch were also briefly in the entrance willows.

Twite flock in the siccie

The ponds are all brim full and the path to the hides were too flooded to get along, so nothing to report from the pool.

I'm off on Friday so will check the burn mouth again.

Advice needed!

Ok, what am I doing wrong? Why don't my pics open to the full size? The only one that does is the the one on my 'just dreaming' post, I did nothing differently (other than add a cattle egret to the original)...am confused. BB suggested re-sizing them all to 800 or 600 wide, which i have and still they don't open, maybe I will have to add a cattle egret to all of my pics?





Then again, maybe not......any help appreciated.

out and about

I've been out and about on the coast this week doing risk audits with RNLI and generally freezin to death/gettin soaked/blown away or mostly all three at once. Not much to report bird-wise other than a kingfisher flying along Warkworth Beach, managed to get some nice shots of Beadnell on Wednesday afternoon though.

Beadnell at Sunset

Spent yesterday at SJP worshipping the returning messiah, even Jesus didn't come back twice! Seemingly Keegan wants to bring some new faces to St James', Peter Beardsley has asked for one of them! haha

Today was spent ringing with JF at the Feeding Station at Druridge Bay Country Park, as expected we caught a lot of tits, and my fingers are sufferin for that, but we also got a good number of siskin, a few chaffinch and a robin, but star bird was this treecreeper, a ringing tick for me! It would also be patch-tick for the pools if we'd been there :-(( We caught over 60 birds so good experience for me, when we were setting up the second net, a male sparrowhawk 'bounced out' of the first net - oh well, can't win them all.... We had a few 'controls' too, some ringed on the left, so should be interesting to see where they have come from.


Called at Dru on the way home, but it was late and cold and just had the feeling that there would be no birds, did get two year ticks though, tufted duck (64) and goldeneye (65). This dead (common??) shrew was on the boardwalk, I have seen water shrew here in the past, this was a bit scabby but wasn't dark enough for water shrew.

WeBS weekend

I was working on Saturday in Seahouses, so called by Newton to see if the Newton Stringer was about, not much doing bird wise, Gary had 2 velvets offshore tho. The light was fantastic, I caught this linnet by the flood (which is now most of the field).

The good light was fading so I hot-footed it to Dru to get a visit in before dusk, The wet meadows were completely frozen, there was 80+ golden plover in the fields with 30 lapwing and 2 slavonian grebe's offshore with 4 redthroats. To the north a flock of about 80-90 goldfinch were flying around the Druridge bushes. This nice kestrel was on the fence at dusk.

Once my hangover subsided (went to the pub to watch the toon getting drubbed 6-0 offuv Man U.) I went down to Dru (12ish - hangovers take more shifting once you're over thirty) to do the WeBS count.

Teal now numbered 129 and wigeon only 40, the wigeon had all gone yesterday due to the ice, I guess they must go to Cresswell or Chev when Dru is frozen? There were 14 Whoopers with the Mutes in the field. Just outside the patch a flock of about 1000 pink-footed geese were in the fields to the south, I had a scan through but couldn't spot anything different. A flock of 30 fieldfare flew over the oddie hide as I was leaving. I then walked through the tress to the bushes to look through the finch flock, kicking up 2 woodcock. I reckon the flock must be over 200 birds, about 160 goldfinch, 30 greenfinch and a few linnets, it would be nice to trap them. A male sprawk then went through the dunes sending them off.

Weekend year-ticks: golden plover, oystercatcher, greenfinch, snipe, moorhen, slavonian grebe, pink footed goose, linnet. That takes me to 63.

Just Dreaming.....

Its defo winter

I've been out'n'about with work this week, had some Irish and yorkshire folks on a visit. We went to Bamburgh yesterday, possibly the coldest I've been on the coast in years, it must have been -5 or -6 at least, they nearly froze to death! We went to Stag rocks to see the new panels, illustrated by John Steele - go check them out if you haven't seen them, they show the winter and summer wildlife of the Stag rocks, John has done a wonderful job! There was about 50 purple sands clinging to the rocks there too. Got a pub tick last night too - the Free Trade in Berwick, mid darts match with pots of steeming stovies - a proper spit'n'sawdust place, if there had of been music, it would have stopped when we walked in!

Today we were in Bamburgh again where it would seem even more blackies have arrived, there were at least 13 in the grove alone, with more in the hedges near Shoreston (no corn bunting though - mythical beast!). Then it started to rain (so we went to the ship at Newton for lunch)and didn't stop til dark, now its extremely windy, so much so, that I daren't look out into the garden for fear my greenhouse (the world's worst, with plastic panels) may be pinned against next-door's fence.

Off to Boulmer Birders patch tomorrow, so it would be nice to turn something up there and then Seahouses on Thursday and Saturday....busy week!

Oh...and I might revise my next patch-tick prediction to cattle egret, I can just picture one now, this saturday, wandering around behind one of the beast on the Budge fields - I hope I find it first....