Depressing

How depressing is this? Sat in my office in Morpeth all day, watching the glorious sunshine out of the window, leave Morpeth after work, still a lovely summers day, get home and it's dull and overcast. Worse still, get to Druridge and it's thick fog and can't see a blimmin thing!

We only get four days of summer in North East England in an average year, but on the North Sea coast three of the four days are blighted by bloody sea frets.

So no seawatching (couldn't see the sea!), no waders (there might have been a spotted sandpiper on the far bank but I wouldn't be able to see it for the fog), nowt really..

Oh.......the mute swans have hatched five young...........happy days!

No Birds!

Well, hardly any birds....Today first visit was mostly spent looking at anything other than birds.

We started at the Budge screen this morning, where this mole entertained us for about 20 minutes, even scurrying under the floor of the hide, some video will be posted tomorrow night.

We then went to the other hides, stopping at the huge viper's bugloss on the way which was alive with bees, moths, butterfly's and various other random insects - here are a few:

large skipper butterfly

silver Y moth

painted lady butterfly

common blue butterfly

(later on we bumped into Frank who had seen a hummingbird hawkmoth on the same plant - grrr)

Further up the track was this common blue damselfy

From the Oddie hide the three otter cubs where playing along the back of the big pool and from the little hide we saw that the lapwing pair had hatched three young.

So when the clouds rolled in of the North Sea and it got a bit misty, we went back to Druridge to catch and ring the chicks, they were tiny but it wasn't an easy job. Lapwing chicks crouch down when approached, they are incredibly well camouflaged, so much, you can't even see them at your feet!

Using stealth tactics of me in the hide keeping an eye on them, Janet went off to catch them. We managed to catch and ring all three, hopefully they will make it to adulthood unlike Thursday's sparrowhawk victim.

tiny lapwing chick - sporting it's new ring

and then legging it away at high speed to join it's siblings

Slug sees very little at Druridge

This slug saw very little of interest from the Oddie tonight

It did see a brood of four new gadwall chicks, it also this saw this yellow shell moth on the track

It noticed that the lapwing that has been sitting on eggs in front of the little hide has now hatched them and there is at least one chick scampering about (there may have been more but it only saw one at any one time!).

It had a look offshore but there wasn't anything new to see.

I didn't bother checking the patch tonight as the slug told me all I needed to know.

Thursday afternoon - velvet scoter

I squeezed a very quick visit in to Druridge on Thursday afternoon, between leaving work and going to see Blur at the Academy, I went through the scoter flock and there was a drake velvet right at the front of the flock - cool eh?

Oh, and good news from Roger Foster on the partridge nest front! He reckons all is well, the eggs have hatched naturally, he could see were the egg tooth had broken through and the mother would have moved them quickly out of the nest in search of insects. I'll keep an eye out for them.

119 velvet scoter

Quick Change

There was an incredibly quick change in the weather tonight, it had been hot and sunny with a light easterly, all day and still was when I arrived at Druridge at 6pm. I went for a look on the sea and could see a bank of cloud offshore, within 20 minutes it came over Druridge and then you could see the front edge moving inland, by the time I left at 8.20pm the sky was completely clouded over as far west as I could see.

The sunshine rapidly disappearing -spot the marsh harrier?

A couple of disappointments tonight, firstly, I checked the grey partridge nest (remember the one with 12 eggs?), well they were all broken, there is no way they could have hatched and left the nest, so I am assuming predation. I am no eggspert (groan) but the don't look like they've hatched naturally, more like they've been broken by something, any thoughts?

The second disappointment was a female sparrowhawk nabbing one of the lapwing chicks. I was alerted to this by all of the lapwings up in the air after something, then spotted the sprawk making off a with yougun. pursued to the wood by at least 12 lapwings, all calling.

The semi-colonial nesting of lapwings is a defence against predators, but not this one. I later saw both male and female sprawks out by the pool.

Offshore there was a harbour porpoise and 2 roseys.

luvverly morning

I managed a quick visit to Druridge this morning, it was a gloriously sunny morning, a real pleasure to be out. There was one highlight, a long-eared owl on the edge of the patch. LEO's occur most summers somewhere on the bay, favouring the coniferous shelter belts, even nesting at the Country Park some years, amongst the picnickers and tourists.

Druridge - who needs tropical beaches?

Bloody Cranesbill

No opportunity to visit Druridge this evening as I had to work..... It's a tough life having work all day and put an evening shift in!

I had to take our Young Rangers group out to the Farne Islands, told you it was tough!

There was patchy sea mist on the way out, which came and went throughout the evening, which made for interesting light. Now if I had a fancy expensive camera, I am sure I could have done something arty, but I haven't so this is it:

118 long-eared owl

Autumn's here!

Even though it was quite warm at Druridge tonight, sunny, with a light easterly moving to s'easterly wind, Autumn is upon us, I had 5 pale-bellied brent geese flying north offshore tonight!

Even though this heralds the beginning of Autumn, they were a welcome year tick as was arctic skua, two of them loitering in the bay. The Scoter flocks sum is now approaching 300.

116 brent goose
117 arctic skua