Five years ago

Having twitched cattle egret at the weekend, a look through old blog posts from January 2008 made stumbling on this quite bizarre

http://ipinswildlifeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2008/01/just-dreaming.html

Maybe, just maybe my dream of 2008 might come true and the cattle egret may no longer find Holy Island to its liking and head south.....

For Gary Stinger I also produced an image of a cattle egret on Beadnell harbour in 2008

Twitch before patch

A twitch took priority over my patch this morning, as I headed north, with what seemed like most of the other birders in the County to Holy Island, to see Northumberland's second ever (and first twitchable) cattle egret.

The bird had roosted in the garden of the bungalow on the Crooked Lonnen overnight and was still in the garden, barely visible, when we arrived. It vacated the garden and flew around for a while, before landing in the adjacent field giving the assembled twitchers good views.

Sizeable twitch (Tom Cadwallenders luminous green hat could be spotted from the mainland!)

As regular readers of the blog will know, I am a reluctant twitcher and rarely travel beyond the County line and I have to admit today's experience isn't high on my list of memorable birding experiences. It was good to catch up with a few folk I've not seen for a while. The addition of cattle egret took my Northumberland list to 306, it was also a British tick for me, but I haven't a clue what that list stands at.

After a quick brew and bacon buttie at home, I was down on the patch. First job was my overdue WeBS count, which took a while as there was lot of birds on the Budge fields, not helped by them being flight for some reason.

Teal numbered 139, wigeon 127, shoveler 9, greylag 112, dunlin 22 and gadwall 10. On the big pool, the long-tailed duck reported yesterday was still present - a good patch bird indeed! This is my first patch 'oldsquaw' since 2007.

Oldsquaw - drake long tailed duck on the big pool

It may be because I have been in Thailand for three weeks, but the strong SW wind made it freezing cold, I retreated to the shelter of the dunes for a quick look at the sea. There wasn't much on it, one red-throated diver and some gulls, I picked up a great northern diver flying north, close in, and a flock of about 60 curlew with a single bar-tailed godwit amongst them.

So today's efforts saw my patch list reach 48 species (52 points in the patch competition). This could well be my last visit of January unless I can sneak in a quick dawn-raid before work.

24 teal
25 coot
26 gadwall
27 wigeon
28 shoveler
29 mallard
30 greylag goose
31 canada goose
32 stock dove
33 dunlin
34 redshank
35 pheasant
36 goldeneye
37 long-tailed duck
38 tufted duck
39 sanderling
40 red-throated diver
41 great-northern diver
42 herring gull
43 great black-backed gull
44 bar-tailed godwit
45 redwing
46 chaffinch
47 house sparrow
48 collared dove

New Year, New Look, New List, New Challenge

It's nearly the end of January, but for me, a new year started on the patch today. I've been to Thailand on birding holiday since December 28th. I will put some photo's on the other blog soon but here is something to whet the appetite.

male blue whistling thrush (eugeni) at Doi Inthanon, Thailand

With the new year, I thought the blog needed a new look. I've gone for a warm feel to dispel thoughts of winter as I write it.

It certainly wasn't warm for my first patch visit of 2013, it was bloody freezing!. I had less than an hour before having to go to work so I concentrated on the hamlet and the north end. I managed to add 23 species  to the list in 45 minutes. The highlight was undoubtedly the number of fieldfare, with small flocks in most of the paddocks, there must have been over 200 on the patch, obviously part of cold-weather movement. There were also small parties of skylark moving through and meadow pipits were also noted.

A couple of hundred pink-feet moved south and there were over 1000 north of the haul road, I didn't have time to grill them though, maybe tomorrow. Dave Elliott had long-tailed ducks and seven pintail on the pool  - another target for tomorrow.

Tomorrows first target is somewhat further away however. I'm off twitching. A cattle egret has apparently been on Holy Island for the last couple of days, only the second county record and  the first twitchable one. A nice edition to both my county and British lists if I catch up with it.

My new challenge is the patchwork competition. I've got some catching up to do though, my 'local rivals' have already topped a hundred species for the year.

1. goldfinch
2. fieldfare
3. skylark
4. magpie
5. carrion crow
6. rook
7. jackdaw
8. feral pigeon
9. wren
10. robin
11. dunnock
12. grey heron
13. lapwing
14. pink-footed goose
15. meadow pipit
16. curlew
17. common gull
18. black-headed gull
19. kestrel
20. woodpigeon
21. starling
22. blackbird
23. mistle thrush

That's me done

Well that's me done on the patch for 2012.

It hasn't been a great year as far as birds are concerned, posting my lowest patch total in at least the last five years, of 146 species, fourteen species down on 2011. I added two new species to the patch-list in 2012 though. A self-found and overdue Honey Buzzard in August and Mandarin Duck in July.

This is how it broke down over the year.

The low total can be blamed on a few things:

1) The weather. Awful
2) Grazing (or lack of) on the Budge Fields - too little, too late resulted in no passage waders
3) Effort - Work getting in the way of birding. (I had 82 separate visit to the patch in 2012)
4) I missed the 'mini' autumn fall and good seawatching days.
5) We only managed four ringing sessions

I had hoped to a nice end-of-year report, but I've run out of time. I'll do a five-year patch report sometime in the new year.

In the meantime, here are some of absentees from my 2012 list

barnacle goose
goosander
red-necked grebe
sooty shearwater
ruff
green sandpiper
wood sandpiper
common sandpiper
pomarine skua
grey wagtail
grasshopper warbler 
brambling
twite

I have a new focus for 2013. I have joined the Patchwork Challenge , along with the Stewart Sexton, Dave Elliott, Alan Tilmouth and James Common.

The patch competition that Alan ran way-back really spurred me on to work the patch a bit harder so hopefully this might too.

It just leaves me to say Happy New Year to you all and I'll see you in January with a refreshed blog and hopefully a refreshed Ipin!

A first for Druridge?

On my visit to Druridge yesterday I might have seen a first for the patch - an inland turnstone.

I'm saying inland, it was in the field west of the Budge fields, which is quite inland for a turnstone. It was feeding with some redshank, curlew and lapwings and it wasn't even high tide. Normally, the only turnstones at Druridge are fly-by birds pushed off either Snab Point or Hauxley rocks at high tide. Very, very occasionally they are on the beach.

The 'turnstone' field was quite good for waders with 91 curlew, 41 redshank and 76 lapwing, there was also a small flock of 20 odd fieldfare with a single redwing.

Two kestrels were still about the patch and a handful of lesser redpolls moved through the alders.

My patch year-list for 2012 currently stands at 146, ten off my usual year tally. I will be very lucky to get another year tick before I go on holiday on 28th December - my worst finish in years is on the cards.

Short-lived Owl

I received some bad news yesterday. A barn owl  we ringed  in the summer at Low Chibburn Farm , just outside my Druridge patch,has been recovered as a road casualty.

It hadn't ventured very far. We ringed it as pulli on 1st July and it was found only 2km at Widdrington as a road casualty only 51 days later.

One of these two little fellas is no longer with us

I pick up a fair few barn owl corpses each year, mainly off the A1. They are 90% first winter/spring birds, if they survive the first year they must get a bit more street-wise. If you do see a barn owl by the side of the road  and it safe to do so, stop, and check its legs for rings. The information from any recovery is really useful.

Ringing is just part of the magnificent work of the BTO. If you use my name, you can join the BTO for only £1. Be quick as this offer ends soon. Follow this link https://www.edirectdebit.com/BTOMembership/form.aspx and put my name in the referring members box.

It's been a while......

My first blog post since November 4th. That's because today was my first (proper) visit to Druridge since November 4th.

I've been busy with other things at weekends since then and until February I go to work in the dark and come home in the dark. To be honest I was lucky to make it out today, felled by a dose of manflu over the weekend but I just had to get out.

Predictably at this time of the year, Druridge threw up no suprises... no great grey shrikes, no hume's warblers, nowt of note at all really.

Even offshore there was nowt, one red-throated diver and a pochard flew north with a gang of mallard.

This pheasant was a highlight....

male pheasant - smart, isn't he?

This first winter or female kestrel was knocking about. You can just make out a ring on it's leg, even zooming up the RAW file I couldn't make the number out.

Kestrel

At Cresswell over 4500 pink-footed geese in the winter cereal field behind the Drift Inn Cafe (now deceased) were a sight to behold.

Just some of the 4500 pink feet at Crfesswell this afternoon

Next weekend has promise if I survive the manflu. No work, no football so hangovers aside I might get some birding or ringing in.