Rozza

A very quick visit to Druridge tonight, my last for a week or so as I am off to sunnier climes.

Only a black-tailed godwit of note on the Budge fields. Offshore, the sea was flat and visibility good, good conditions for tern-watching, though there weren' t that many about, I did see my rozza of the year. Thursday's great northern has moved on, so all in all, pretty quiet.

112 roseate tern

Great Northern

A quick visit to Druridge tonight with nothing much to report other than a splendid summer-plumaged great northern diver offshore, not too far off either. You don't often see the 'big' divers in Druridge Bay in summer plumage so this was all the better.

There were also five red-throats offshore in a variety of plumages.

Not much to report on the pools, migrant waders today numbered 13 ringed plover, 2 dunlin and a curlew.

This grey partridge was in front of the little hide, the other half of the pair was, unknown to me, even closer, I only realised when it flew out from in front of the hide calling.

111 great northern diver

Tonights waders

A bit of a wader update, but firstly, the spoonbill is still here and thankfully tonight he was a bit closer allowing some piccies, unfortunately, he wasn't' active for long and soon went back to sleep!

There was also a good scattering of waders again including a stunning little stint which was nicely turning orangey,a nice year tick, below dwarfed by the black-tailed godwit.
more godwits

There were two male redshanks displaying to a single female, quite impressive to watch, I wished I had videoed it, but here's a pic

The waders were spooked from the Budge fields by a marauding carrion crow, the little stint didn't return, but some of the ringed plovers and dunlin returned to the front of the Oddie hide, allowing some photo's.

There were more ringed plover and dunlin on the beach with two summer plumage sanderlings, other than a pair of little grebe appearing on the big pool, not much else to report

110 little stint

Sleepy Spooner

All good intentions of doing atlas work this morning, were knocked on the head when the Toon got beat yesterday and sorrows needed drowning. My leisurely start to the morning, after staying in bed til gone 1030, cam to an abrupt end when I checked the mobile to see a message from Dave Elliott saying 'Spoonbill at Druridge'. Thankfully it was still there when I turned up 5 hours after he had found it.

It didn't do a lot, spoonbills rarely do, it just slept a lot. It wasn't even close enough for a photo as it was right over by the heronry wood. After getting our fill of the spooner, we had a roam around the patch.

There wasn't much to report though, none of the goodies that Newbiggin has turned up. There's a few young birds about, one of the lapwing pairs had two small young today and there appears to be another young gadwall. There were 4 pheasant chicks cheeping in the wood, after the mother was scared off by me trampling about.

We spotted a meadow pipit feeding young in the dunes, and found the nest with 5 large ringable young, so they got ringed and put back. I wish I had more time to look for nests, but never have.

Above top the mipit nestlings in the nest and above, one of the nestlings after it had been ringed

On the non-bird front, I saw my first wall brown butterfly of the year

We also came across this plant, I can't find it in my book, I think it might be a saxifrage, but have posted it below so hopefully Nigel or Stewart can help me out.

109 Spoonbill

guuarrgghhh

guuarrgghhh, that's how I felt this morning, with tales of iccies and firecrests coming from Newbiggin and some nice easterlies and fog, I knew I should be at Dru. BUT, having gone to watch the cricket at Chester-le-Street yesterday that didn't happen, we decided to spend the the next 11 hours in the booozer, hence the guuarrggghhh!

Anyhoo, I managed to get an hour at Druridge before hitting the lager again before the match. I bashed the bushes, but found very little, garden warbler, a singing male, was the only year tick.

Had my hangover not prevailed and we had gone ringing, I am sure we might have turned up a rare or two

108 garden warbler

Wader Update

A quick wader update, tonight there were:

dunlin 2
ringed plover 5
whimbrel 3
redshank 2
ruff 6
wood sandpiper 1

Also new broods of 5 shoveler, 10 and 9 mallards, 2 gadwall and yesterday's 2 yellow wags are still present.

107 wood sandpiper

Yellow wags

I saw my first yellow wags of the year at Druridge tonight, a pair of them on the mud in front of the little hide, these fantastic birds appear to be getting scarcer and scarcer.

Crappy record shot of a yellow wagtail

I went to Druridge looking for a bluethroat tonight, the Farnes had one today and there was one Holy Island. No such luck at Dru, bluethroat would be a full patch tick for me, though they are the Druridge list.

There was nothing much different about Druridge tonight than there was last night, even the flying man was back again. Dunlin now number 8 and ringed plover 5. A female greenland race wheatear was near the parking area. And to prove you can never have enough stonechat pics on one blog:

106 yellow wagtail