Druridge Yesterday

Two visits to the patch yesterday, in the morning I was there with Janet and the loppers and bow saw, doing some management work to the net rides in preparation for the spring - She's a hard task-master so I got no birding done...

In the afternoon I went on my own... The Budge Fields are looking good and they were covered with lapwing, redshank and curlew, most of these will be gone soon. The grass height looks excellent so hopefully it will be a good breeding year for lapwings and snipe......maybe even redshank.

There were a 12 grey herons on the fields too, huddled together in small groups, it was an icy-cold wind (then it started to snow), but I reckon they feasting on frogs, there is a lot of mating and spawning going on in the frog-world this week.

A peregine came though and put everything up - a welcome year tick, it took me til December last year to get one.

NWT have been busy with management works too, installing a new Budge screen. It's a metal job and unlike the previous screen, the windows are at a good height. Th last one was OK if you were a giant or a dwarf (I know, before anyone leaves a comment - i'd be OK...)

This nice toad was on the track

62 peregine

63 reed bunting

Fish list

There was a report today of another oarfish washed up on our coast, this time at Tynemouth. Amazing that this is only the 4th UK record and we have had two less than 30 miles away from each other in a month. Seemingly the shouldn't even be in the North Sea, it's too shallow for them!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/7908284.stm

Now I don't keep a fish list (alive or dead).....but I know someone who does, I wonder if he twitched it?

India Day Three

India Day three has been added to Ipin's Birding Trips, check it out!

Sunday was WeBS day

Visited Druridge briefly on Sunday to do the WeBS count before the match, it was a nice sunny morning, though the westerly had a bit of a bite. Nothing startling on the WeBS, but the duck numbers are up on the Budge fields now the cows have munched their way through the veg, it's looking canny for the spring now.

There was a a flock of 350 black-headed gulls on the field by the haul road, a scan through them only turned up 3 common gulls in their midst, there was two good flock of lapwings with 113 west of the Budge fields and 286 on them. Ducks were:

wigeon 136
teal 149
mallard 26
shoveler 15

My other WeBS site, Ellington Pond is usually pretty much deserted, but it was jammed with wildfowl (by Ellington Pond standards) on Sunday including 6 tufted ducks, 29 mallard and 12 gadwall.

Coquet Island

I had to work today, but it wasn't too bad, cos I got to go to Coquet Island. This RSPB reserve is not open to the public for landing, but we were working for RSPB so I got to spend the day there.

The eiders were very vocal at the fish dock in Amble, the males all displaying to the females, making their comical noises.

Obviously at this time of year the island is very quiet bird-wise, with only the fulmars beginning to establish themselves.

There were some winter visitors around including a first-winter glaucous gull, peregrine, a few meadow pipits and a robin in the gardens.

This working on Saturday is tough going......

This Evening

The daylight hours are getting noticeably longer, so much so that i managed to get down to Dru after work today, it was nearly dark (5.20pm), but there was 20 minutes of reasonable light, I just looked from the Budge screen.

No owls, as I had hoped for, or bittern. I did add water rail to the year list though and there were good numbers of wigeon, teal and lapwing and 13 magpie....could be my record count for Dru?

I'm looking forward to the long evenings of May and June now.....

61 water rail

Gripped

If anyone has been following previous posts and comments, you may have noticed the back-and-forth about the bittern. Stu sent me a photo today and there it is, as large as life, on the Budge fields...... A BITTERN!
Bittern from the Little Hide (photo: Stu Fenwick)

Stu reckoned it was about 1pm on Saturday...that would've just been about when we finished putting the bird boxes up and went to quickly check the north end and the Budge fields, only from the screen hide.......

I could see 2 or 3 birders in the little hide, but no birds were apparent on the fields...now I know...and I am gutted, totally gutted.

There had been a report of bittern at Dru during the heavy snow too.

The woe of a patch worker, there's me doing my bit for conservation, putting up nestboxes whilst missing a bittern..

I'm off to the pub...............