Eggcellent Sunday Morning

Pardon the pun, I was slipping into 'local rag' mode there! it was a beautiful sunny morning at Druridge this morning, a breezy SE wind kept it cool though.

If somebody had plonked me down at Druridge today, from a spacecraft, not knowing what date it was, I could've named it as Easter bank holiday. Druridge somehow attracts all manner of plebs on bank holidays weekends and today was no different.

Fires were still burning from trees hacked down during the night, mini-motorbikes with charvas on board sped along the length of the reserve and muppets in corsas played rave music at full howk. I had 'wurds' with some geezer who allowed his dogs to shit on the grass by the road, remote controlled cars were on the beach and microlights were overhead. Hurrah!

Now, as regular readers of this blog know, I'm keen on people enjoying the countryside in all manner of ways, as long they respect it, but your average bank holiday visitors have no respect at all - Rant over.

On the positive side, the garganeys and the little egret were still on the Budge fields and a great-crested grebe on the main pool was a bonus as was sandwich tern offshore.

On the non-bird front, I recorded my first two butterflies of the year, a small tortoiseshell and this scabby-looking peacock, highlight of the day however was four bottlenosed dolphins in the bay, two of which were really close in, about offuv east chev when first picked up, just beyond the breakers. Both 'twos' were moving north - NICE!

Also on the migrant front, swallow was seen again heading south, there were two wheatears on the haul road, willow warblers seemed to be singing everywhere and sand martins were now common.

News from ADMc and TB - Two avocets flew from E. Chev and landed briefly at Cresswell Pond before flying off south...and they didn't have the decency to pop in to Druridge!

78 great-crested grebe

79 sandwich tern

Bloody Good Friday

We took last night's NTBC speaker and all-round decent chap, Mark Grantham, birding for a couple of hours this morning. we could've gone anywhere in the County, but where else is better than Druridge?

We started at the Budge screen, the garganey pair and little egret were still there and a willow warbler was singing nearby, another year-tick. We had a walk through the wood and a quick look on the big pool, with nothing of note other than 14 oystercatchers getting a bit agitated.

We then walked along the haul-road to Chev and back, just as we were leaving the patch to the north, I spotted a male wheatear on the ground, outside the patch, luckily for me it flew south to perch on the patch boundary - get in!

Mark seemed to enjoy his visit to Druridge, on the way to the train station, we called at Lynemouth to look for the water pipit, MSK told us that it had flow off just before we arrived, whilst we were talking a nice 3rd cy iceland gull circled over the flash, before heading off towards the sea. A good end to the mornings birding, despite not seeing the water pipit.

76 willow warbler
77 wheatear

Day Off

I decided to stretch my Easter hollibobs by taking an extra day offuv work, so I could've decorated the house, worked in the garden or gone birding...guess what?

I went to Druridge

The little egret and garganey were both still on the Budge fields and looking stunning!

These two also attracted a min-twitch, obviously there's nowt about in the County, I've not seen as many birders at Druridge in yonks, I got more 'birder' year-ticks than I did 'bird' year-ticks.

Of the bird year-ticks, I finaly added sand martin to my year-list, first picked up by Tim Cleeves, many more were seen later in the day. Whilst admiring the garganeys, a swallow flew south over the Budge Screen too and chiffchaffs were calling in the wood. On the Budge fields, there were at least three lapwings sitting tight and few snipe and redshank loitering about too.

I walked through the dunes a bit, looking for wheatears but didn't see any, however there were loads of linnets and mippits in the dunes and six twite were on the fence, moulting into summer plumage - nice! At the north end, a white wagtail was looking smart in the field.

A quick look on the sea produced very little, 100's of gannets were moving in the ditance and there were more kitti's about, no terns or puffins yet though.

I called at Lynemouth (Bewick Drift) flash to see the water pipit that's been there a few days - what a belter!

73 sand martin

74 swallow

75 chiffchaff

Garganey on cue

I've been up the coast for work today, had three swallows flying north at Spittal and a single at Bamburgh - so that's it, Summer is here! Also 3 sandwich terns at Bamburgh.

Anyhoo, I called at Druridge briefly on my way home, thinking "maybe a garganey has dropped in", I get to the Budge screen and what's the first bird I see - drake garganey, closely followed by a female. Just the ticket, and feeling all smug cos I thought I might of been the first to see them, but it appears not, Adrian Allen arrived and told me they had been on 'Birdguides'.

Him'n'Her

The godwit was still there, but no sign of the egret - though it had been seen earlier by Trevor and Brian Bulloughs - who also had an LRP at Dru...BUGGER...I missed LRP last year at Dru, hope that's not the first and last one!

72 Garganey

missed year tick

I missed this one out

71 lesser black-backed gull

A few year ticks

We were doing some net-ride clearance at Druridge this afternoon, the chainsaw helping to clear my monstrous hangover, when we spotted a chap legging it towards the Budge screen, we thought 'that's odd!' - there must be something about. So I got permission offuv the Project Manager (Fairclough) to investigate. The chap said there had been a little egret reported on Birdguides and he was running cos he'd left his dog in his car. Anyhoo, it wasn't there when I gave the Budge fields a brief scan and the running chap was off, without seeing the egret, to return to his dog. No sooner had he disappeared then it came out in front of the little hide - year tick No. 1.

After we finished the net-rides, we had time for some proper birding, there was still no migrant passerines to be had, still no sand martins or chiffchaffs.. the Budge fields are looking good for breeding stuff though, so hopefully the lapwings and snipe will have a good year and it should attract some passage waders too.

A quick look on the sea produced a flurry of year ticks, well, four..I got my first guillie's, gannet, kittiwake and fulmar of 2009, also of note was 5 red-throats.

On the way back to the car, I called in to see if the egret was photographable from the Budge screen, it was there but distant, but a further quick scan added black-tailed godwit to the year list with one feeding on the Budge fields.

65 little egret
66 fulmar
67 kittiwake
68 gannet
69 guilliemot
70 black-tailed godwit

Interestingly, this time last year I was 83 for the year and had just added firecrest to the year list...

Still no summer visitors (2)

I've still not seen any summer visitors at Druridge, chiffchaffs are singing all over the place and people are reporting sand martins and swallows, but they've all alluded me at druridge.

I did get a year tick during my post-work visit this evening, sparrowhawk, flying over the budge fields, scattering the snipe. There's a still a good number of teal about, a good scan through them for garganey was unproductive. There were a few tufties and gadwall on the big pool, whilst I was scanning I spotted an otter swimming across the pool, when it reached the fallen willow on the east bank, there was scerfuffle as it greeted another two otters laid up in the tree.
The three of them then played in and around the tree for 30 minutes or so.

All three of them were about the same size, so I reckon that they are three siblings by the way they were playing together, certainly none of them were the big dog that I have seen lately.

Other highlights tonight included six whoopers swans and 89 pink-footed geese flying south and a pair of stonechat in the dunes.

64 sparrowhawk