What a contrast!

Last weekend was warm and sunny. This weekend it's snowy and freezing cold.

I had to go to work this morning, by the time I got home and had thawed out, there was still a mixture of sleet, wet snow and rain coming over so I didn't make it to Druridge at all.

Instead, I've added the first installment of a mini-trip report from our recent trip to Thailand to Ipin's Birding Trips.

Enjoy.

A taster

Like a bank holiday...

You get two sunny days in a row and every man and their dog(s) head for Druridge. It was like a bank holiday Monday in August this afternoon, cars, people, dogs and kites everywhere.

A quick look on the sea produced a flurry of year ticks - guillemot, red-breasted merganser, eider, razorbill and kittiwake (the patch competition is very generous, awarding two-points to the latter three species!). There were also 11 red-throated divers offshore and 17 sanderling on the beach.

After nearly being attacked by a huge black shark (on the end of strings, held by a small child) we headed for the tranquility of the Budge screen.

The Budge fields still hold a lot of water and a lot of birds. The highlight were three pintail amongst the wildfowl. A visiting birder alerted us to a short-eared owl, perched on a fence to the south of the screen. It sat, perched on the same fence-post, for half an hour. It was too far away for photo's.

Two long-tailed ducks are still on the big pool. The female was being harassed by the first returning shelduck of the spring.

At the 'top-end' a mixed flock of goldfinch and linnet also contained a single greenfinch.

So the year-list stands at 73, giving me a score of 81 on the patch competition. The mini-league for the 'Coastal North' has been published for January and I am last - got some catching up to do.

65 moorhen (seen last week but missed)
66 kittiwake
67 eider
68 red-breasted merganser
69 guillemot
70 razorbill
71 short-eared owl
72 shelduck
73 greenfinch

WeBS Count

Today was WeBS count day and the WeBS count was about all I could manage. The wind from the south was biting and sleet threatened, it was grim!

The Budge fields were full of birds and they were flighty, so counting was tricky.

plenty of birds on the Budge fields

The top five were:

Wigeon 226
Lapwing 145
Curlew 118
Teal 114
Greylag 54

Highlights were the two long-staying long-tailed ducks and three pintail. Snipe was the only addition to the year list. It was sleeting hard when i finished the count, I was freezing, so I packed in and went to the Country Barn for some sustenance. 

I managed a brief check of Druridge on Friday evening after work, the evenings are getting lighter and there was still some visibility at half-past-five. Two barn owls were hunting around the dunes and song thrush was addition to the list. This takes the patch list to 64 and the Patchwork Challenge to 68 points.

One of the two barn owls hunting in the dunes

curlews silhouetted at dusk

62 song thrush
63 barn owl
64 snipe

February gets of to a flying start

With the toon at home yesterday and a belated birthday night out on Friday, I only managed one visit to the patch this weekend and that was delayed due to much celebrating last night, after the toon's magnificent victory.

A flock of about 450 pink-footed geese on the filed in front of the hamlet were grilled, they were all pink-foots. In the same field, three male grey partridges were competing for the attentions of a female - quite an impressive display, spring must be in the air.

The Budge fields are holding a lot of water, which has attracted a lot of dabbling ducks and few diving ducks too. Mostly wigeon and teal but also today were mallard, gadwall, shoveler, tufted duck, pintail and pochard. There were singles of each of the latter two, both new for the year list. There were also lots of curlew. On the big pool there were still two long-tailed ducks.

I saw a couple of species that I really didn't expect to see until the autumn today, great-spotted woodpecker and goldcrest. The goldcrest was in with a flock of ten or so long-tailed tits and a great tit. A passing sparrowhawk rattled them a bit!

Long-tailed tit

Elsewhere, at the north end, there was a small flock of mixed finches, mostly twite with linnet and goldfinch and on the beach, a female stonechat poked around amongst the flotsam and jetsam.

A couple of birders had seen a short-eared owl, but I didn't.

So today's effort takes the patch total up to 61 species and 65 points on the patchwork challenge.

49 grey partridge
50 pintail
51 pochard
52 great-spotted woodpecker
53 long-tailed tit
54 great tit
55 goldcrest
56 sparrowhawk
57 linnet
58 twite
59 stonechat
60 mute swan
61 cormorant

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