End of the year

Well, I'll not get down to Druridge again this year, so it's time to look back on the year. I haven't been down there since Christmas Day due to football and social events and I've got to go a mate's wedding tomorrow.


Yesterday we did my Atlas squares in the Cheviots, the first tetrad took in Threestoneburn and the second took in the flank of Hedgehope down to Langleeford. The trudge up to the crags from the Hawsen Burn had me jiggered, too much food and booze over the festive period...the diet starts in January! In both tetrads we had only 11 species, though it looks good for the summer....highlights were the number of red grouse we saw, a woodcock feeding on grit, two stonechats and a treecreeper.

Anyhoo, back to Druridge...

Well the year list ended on 161...not bad but not outstanding, 165+ is a good year. I had 4 patch ticks this year taking my patch list to 217, they were: marsh warbler, barred warbler, greenish warbler and treecreeper. Other patch highlights this year were green-winged teal, iceland gull, temmincks stint, the huge fall of wheatears, redstarts and others during the 'Morpeth' flood weekend, catching and ringing a wryneck a week later and red-backed shrike on the gypsy's pile o shite - as predicted.

Obvious omissions from the year list in 2008 were the lack of seabirds with sooty shear, pom or long-tailed skua. Among the wildfowl there were no scaup, smew, ruddies or white-fronted geese. Also missing was green sandpiper, turnstone, LRP, black redstart, yellow-browed warbler, black tern, brambling, snow bunting and kingfisher.

The biggest disappointments of the year included being stuck in China when lesser-yellowlegs turned up (and the number of text messages I received to tell me about it), the red-breasted goose turning out to be plastic, the lack of seawatching, not catching the marsh warbler and the barred warbler (and having it rejected by the CRC) and not catching any twite at our feeding site.

Also disappointing was NWT not delivering on promises in 08, although looking forward to 2009, the over-wintering cows are doing a canny job, NWT have put the site into stewardship which will mean they have to manage appropriately and a management plan has been written for the site.

So what will 2009 bring, hopefully I will get a copy of the management plan...also lots of cows in July, lots of breeding waders, good spring and autumn passage when we're ringing and plenty of patch ticks.....BRING IT ON!!!!

To my fellow bloggers and regular readers I hope you have a happy, healthy, prosperous 2009 with plenty of good birds!

Tis the season to be merry

I have been getting merry quite a bit lately, the social calendar has been burstin at the seams and what with football and work, I've struggled to get down to Dru or update the blog..

Anyhoo the holidays started today, there's still lots of partying to be done between now and the 5th and plenty of football, but I should manage a few days out 'in the field'.

I went to Dru this afternoon, the resident cows on the Budge fileds are finaly having an impact on the vegetation and thus the duck numbers have begun to rise - on the Budge fields today were:

teal 136
gadwall 10
shoveler 2
tufted duck 1
wigeon 87
mallard 29...and a snipe and grey heron


It just needs the cows to stay on over the winter and the juncus to be flailed and we might get some decent breeding wader numbers next year. Other than more ducks, not much to report, a merlin came through and perched at the back of the fields, there were 9 red throats offshore with 1 merganiser and a few shag.

I'll be down at Dru tomorrow morning (last year we had a good views of otter and a water rail eating a dead black-headed gull) but in the meantime...

HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL!*

*Including those I may have offended this year such as NWT, The County Records Committee and the wazack who keeps putting common birds on the pager from Holywell Pond

Away Days

It's a bugger trying to maintain a blog during the winter with these awful short days...sorry for the lack of blog-action!

As well as work and winter, I've been away for a long-weekend in Barcelona. Not a birding trip at all - the bins were left at home! It was a city trip, seeing the sights, eatin the food and drinkin anything they served us.

Barca is an amazing city with lots to see, some nice parks, lots of public art and some great bars and restaurants. We saw the amazing La segrada familla - a huge temple, still under construction, we went to the Picasso museum, Camp Nou (not for El Clasico though), Las Ramblas....I could go on.


We did see some birds, lots of ring-necked and monk parakeets, a flock of black redstarts and some crag martins around the castle and yellow-legged gulls at the port.

Monk Parakeet at Parc Guell
Back to Druridge briefly this morning to hoy some food down for the non-existent twite - not even any golfinches there this morning....grim!

BLEAK!!

It was a lazy wind at Druridge today, the type of wind that is too lazy to go around you, so it just goes straight through you....nithering! It was overcast by the time my hangover eased, one of those damp, cold days.

Janet and I were testing the big whoosh net, it worked OK but we didn't catch any of the goldfinch that were there, we need to get some more practice, but on a warmer day, our fingers were frozen by the time we dismantled it.

Druridge was pretty bleak, though I did get a year tick long-tailed duck on the sea, it was actually quite close in but the sea wasn't and I couldn't be arsed to walk down and try to photograph it. I did manage to photograph this little grebe though. Other than a woodcock and 4 tufties there was little else of note.

More crap pager messages over the weekend....if you put these on, OWN UP!!

Bramblings in Cramlington and Wallsend and 120 pink-footed geese at Holywell Pond - there are 4000 pink feets flying back and forward over my house every day, I don't phone RBA and stick them on!

161 long-tailed duck

Farnes Blog

I've just discovered that Steely (the head warden on the Farne Islands) has, at last, got a Farnes blog....after much nagging. Check it out http://farnephoto.blogspot.com/

Just in time for them to come of the islands for winter...

Jack's been out

Jack frost has certainly been out this weekend...brrrrrrr.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately - it's hard work during the short days!

Only got down to Dru briefly this afternoon, had to work yesterday. We were going to trial the big whooshnet today but the ground was so frozen we couldn't get the poles in...oh and Janet lost some of it!

So we had a wander around the reserve and went looking for the elusive twite. We walked north to Chibburn Mouth, but didn't see any and there are no sign of any by Bell's farm. If anybody does come across them, please let me know. We bumped into Stef McElwee looking for the snow goose that has been at East Chevington for the last couple of days. It's an interesting one, it's the same bird that has been at Holywell for the last week or so. It was with greylags (so it's bound to be an escape), it's now with pink feets (so it has to be real)...There were 3500-4000 pinkfeets in the fields north of the preceptory but I didn't see the snow goose - could I tick it if I had?

I've not got it on my Druridge list - I bet a few people have ticked it this weekend?

Stef was good enough to phone me as I wandered off to point out a little egret that had flown south over his head, it must've flown over us too - we saw it flying off over the pines at the entrance, it'll be finding feeding difficult with all the small shallow pools frozdid.

A bit of a rant now, the County Records Committee has booted out our barred warbler record from the floods...grrrrr..it won't be coming of my list though - f*#k em! It would appear that to have a record accepted, one should have attended a two-week creative writing course to enable one convey the excitement of the find, maybe the Bird Club could put on a couple of courses? Not much point in submitting the marsh warbler - lots of singing and brief glimpse - someone else can submit it, it's staying on my list!

And another thing......I get my pager messages via text messages from RBA rather than have a pager, each message costs me about 12p. I have the local channel on in case anything turns up at Dru I should know about. Can I make it clear now that I do not want to know about crossbills at wallsend, siskins at whitley bay, 3 whooper swans at Bolam, pink footed geese anywhere (especially Holywell) and especially not willow tit at Holywell....why do people bother phoning the pager company to put birds like this on?

There are thousands of pfg's everywhere, there are 60 whoopers in Druridge Bay - why do I want to know about 40 geese at Holywell or 3 whoopers at Bolam bloody Lake!

Wintery weather

The first real winter weather this weekend, I had to work yesterday, taking a couple of journo's for a walk around Howick and Craster, not much opportunity for birding though (I was at work after all), because of the extreme cold and wind, we had to retreat to the ship at Newton for lunch - tough! Did have a peregrine at Cullernose Point. Below is the Bathing House from the south and Cullernose Point with Dunstanburgh Castle in the background.

At Druridge this morning there was even more snow but it was nice and bright. We did the WeBS count and just wandered around the patch. There were geese and swans on the move, mainly south, but the whoopers seemed to be all over the place, making then difficult to count, there were at least 30 though, I managed to catch this lot going north by Chibburn Farm.

On the pools, the wigeon and teal numbers were up a bit with 50ish of each. When we arrived at Dru I predicted that today looked like a good day to finally nail peregine for the year and I was right. As we wandered towards the haul road, the waders, gulls and starlings on the fields to north all went up in a chaotic swirl - it had to be a peregrine, it was! In the sunshine it looked incredibly bright,an adult male judging by its size chasing golden plovers, it failed and went to sit in the middle of the fields, too far away to photograph. I've been waiting for one of these all autumn having failed to see one in the spring (when they are trickier), I thought I would dip, only to see one on in the first January visit.

As we walked towards Chibburn Farm, it came back over the fields containing some of the 250-300 golden plover, 200 Lapwing and 200 black-headed gulls along with starlings, corvids and other random gulls.










In the bushes there were quite a few thrushes, dunnocks, robins and wrens, nothing out of the ordinary. We called it a day at half one and retreated to the tearoom at Widdrington Village for lunch......

160 peregrine