Patch Tick!

They don't come often these days, but today saw another new bird added to my Druridge patch list. Mandarin Duck. OK, it's not a mega rare eastern migrant, but it's new for the patch and it's on my list.

It took a bit to get, after last nights failed efforts, I had a 6.30 start this morning but the duck proved to be illusive. Thankfully, whilst I was having a wander, it was re-found by the original finder, Steve Rippon. It only showed for a couple of minutes before disappearing again, probably sat up in the trees.

The mandarin takes the patch list to 226, my first patch tick of 2012 and the first since last years storm petrel.

Elsewhere this morning the long-eared owl juveniles were very vocal, calling all morning. This one was visible from the public right of way.

Peek-a-boo. Juvenile long-eared owl watching me watching it

 They are also very mobile but are still being fed by the adults.

Silhouette of long-eared owl adult with a vole

A female tufted duck had a brood of five newly-hatched ducklings.

Adult female tufted duck with five ducklings

Cute. tufted duckling

A tip off from Dave Elliott helped me add cuckoo to the year list as I scoped an adult flying south past the plantation toward Hemscotthill. Seemingly, Dave had seen six cuckoos at East Chevington this morning.

This afternoon I was back on the patch, this time ringing the barn owl chicks from the nestbox on the farm. I've been watching the adults hunting around the patch for the last couple of weeks, taking plenty of prey into the box so is suspected there might be a good-sized brood and I was right. When we checked the box we found four good-sized young inside, two of them not far off fledging.

One of four barn owl chicks ringed from the nestbox

Even at this age it can be possible to sex barn owls. The spots on the underwing of this bird shows it will be a female

Ringed and 'posted' back into their box. They'll be fledging soon.

After ringing the owls, I had a drive along the dune road and my luck was in. A raptor caught my eye, flying toward the car from right, from the dunes. As it drew level, I could see a 'moustache' - an adult hobby flew over the car and then over the bushes...gone. There has been a hobby reported regularly over the last week or so from Cresswell up to Chevington. Nice to see it at Druridge.

122 mandarin duck
123 cuckoo
124 hobby

Patch tick dip

My 500th blog post but I am gutted. I've just dipped a full patch tick - Mandarin Duck!

After a busy day, I got down to Druridge after six this evening, starting with a look on the sea and quick scan for owls from the big dune but if I'd gone straight to the Oddie hide I would have a patch tick in the bag. 

I didn't go to the Oddie hide because yesterday there was nothing to so see there.

So, I wander down from the big dune and bump into Alan Hall and Steve Rippon heading towards their car and tell me they'd just been watching a female mandarin duck on the big pool...."That'll be a patch tick for you?"...

They both headed down to the Oddie hide with me to show me where it had last been seen. I gave it an hour or so until we all agreed that it was either gone or had gone to roost. Gutted.

There's always tomorrow.

Aside from the anguish of dipping a patch mega, the highlights were a summer-plumaged red-throated diver offshore (first one of the autumn), a drake scaup on the big pool and the best bit of all - the long-eared owls have fledged three chicks, they were all calling on the reserve tonight.

This morning I've been up to Dunbar for the annual ringing session of the kittiwake colony there.

Dunbar Harbour kittiwake colony

I also got to ring herring gull chicks

I've been trying out the macro facility on the new camera, not sure what I am doing with it yet (like how to i get the whole damselfly in focus not just the head or tail) but here are a couple of efforts.

Azure damselfly

Large skipper and viper's bugloss

121 Scaup

Monday and Tuesday on the patch

I had a day off work yesterday so spent the morning on the patch. The sky was overcast and rain threatened all morning. I had a bit of a play around with the new dSLR but the light was awful, so didn't do much.

male scorpion fly Panorpa communis

Through the reeds. singing male reed  bunting   

juvenile stonechat

Highlights of the morning where barn and long-eared owl and a female marsh harrier.

I would love to take the credit for this excellent long-eared owl shot, but I can't, it's one of Alan Gilbertson's.

hunting long eared owl (c) Alan Gilbertson

This morning, I had a quick pre-work look around the patch , in the fog. A great-spotted woodpecker was unusual for this time of year. They are normally an autumn passage bird at Druridge.

Dodging the showers

My alarm was set for 4.30 this morning, with a  plan to go ringing. I didn't even need to get out of bed to realise that ringing wasn't an option as the rain was hammering off the window.

So, a more leisurely start to my morning, sauntering down to the patch for 11ish to the WeBS count and have a nosey about. I had to dodge the showers though, heavy showers, arriving one after the other from the north.

I was heartened to see that two of the County's scarcer breeding duck species had produced broods of ducklings; shoveler (one brood of four) and gadwall (at least two broods, one of nine - maybe a quarter size and a brood of four tiny ducklings not long out of the egg). Gadwall are becoming much more common, but shoveler only breed at a few sites each year. It was nice to add a hunting marsh harrier to the WeBS count too.

It is difficult to tell exactly how the waders have done this year as the vegetation is so high. I've counted a handful of lapwing chicks, a pair of oystercatchers were behaving like a nesting pair a week or two ago, they've vanished and the snipe?  It's impossible to say.

The Exmoor ponies grazing the Budge fields have been better than nothing but not ideal, they are too selective. What NWT need now is some big hairy cows to chomp the rank grass, flatten the rush and eat the vegetation in the pools. If they get them on in the next couple of weeks, we might get to see some passage waders.

I had begun to think great-crested grebe were going to evade my 2012 patch-list. Once much more common at Druridge, they've become trickier in recent years so I was pleased to see a pair out on the big pool.

record shot of great-crested grebe in awful light

I've got the day of work tomorrow so hope to give the patch a bit a flogging and if the light is better, have a play with the new camera.

120 Great-crested grebe

late evening visit

A late evening visit to the patch, spent entirely scanning from the top of the big dune yielded a me a very nice year-tick - a spoonbill.

I was chatting to a mate, showing him a male marsh harrier when tit flew over the spoonbill on the Budge fields. It was up to its belly, feeding in the pool, so I couldn't tell whether it was the same bird that was at Newton recently sporting lots of jewellery (see the Stringers post)

As well as the spooner and the marsh harrier I also had barn owl, long-eared owl and a couple of roseate terns offshore. Also on the budge field at dusk was a male roe deer, it must be a couple of years since I saw deer on the patch. Not a bad haul.

Still no groppers

115 roseate tern
116 long-eared owl
117 spoonbill

Absence makes the heart grow stronger....

Sorry for the lack of blog activity lately. Don't worry, the excitement of the two red-rumped swallows didn't send me over the edge, there are two good reasons.

The first was an excellent birding and mammal watching trip to NE Poland and the second, much more mundane reason was a trapped nerve in my back which debilitated me for the best part of two weeks. Before I round up the latest news from Druridge (there's not much!), here are some photos from Poland. We went to the amazing Bialoweiza Forest NP in the extreme NE of Poland first then to the Biebza marshes. If you haven't been to this area before I can thoroughly recommend it.

Bog alder and spruce forest - home of white-backed woodpeckers

middle-spotted woodpecker at the nest

Pygmy owl (poor quality, nearly dark!)

   

European bison at dawn - worth the 3.30am start

black redstart  - just out of the nest

common cranes

great reed warbler in FULL blast

whiskered tern

white-winged tern

So, back to Druridge. My bad-back literally put me out of action until Monday/Tuesday so no visits at all til then. Even though I am a bit more mobile, I've only managed four short visits to the patch.

Barn owls seem ever-present at the moment, with both parent hunting around the patch from early evening. (I did fear for them the other night when three 'shoot anything that moves' types turned up with air rifles). A male marsh harrier is hunting regularly over the Budge fields too. Two little terns were feeding in the bay, a species I failed to see in 2011.

What is worrying is the total absence of grasshopper warblers - where are they? I spoke to Dave Elliott who hasn't heard any at East Chev either. Is this situation the same across the County?

Today was generally grey, the sun did put in a short appearance in the afternoon. I had a good walk around the patch this morning but didn't see much of note. It wasn't easy to see anything from any of the hides as the grass has now grown up in front of the windows. Normally I would cut this myself, but not with my bad-back! Hopefully NWT are on the case. I spent some time wandering around with the new camera, just trying it out. The light was awful so not much success.

View from the hide - good if you like wildflowers

cuckoo flower or ladies smock

There were fledged grey heron youngsters on the Budge fields. We tried to ring some at the colony before we went to Poland, but couldn't get into the nests. There were eight occupied nests this year, down two from 2011.

Tonight I had a quick look on the see and scan over the patch. The oddest thing was a party of 19 sanderlings, all in breeding plumage, that appeared on the beach from nowhere. The question is...are they late migrants heading north or are they either failed or non-breeders moving back south?

Hopefully normal bogging service will now resume.

PS the patch year-list now stands at 114 (must try harder)

Surprise surprise - not one but two!

No patchwatching this morning. We decided to give our ringing site at Lynemouth a bash instead and we are doubly pleased we did.

Before checking our nets for the third time, I decided to have wander up to the 'poo filters' to see if anything was about, Janet hates the smell but decided to join me. As we approached, a flock of hirundines was feeding in front of us, with my naked eye I immediately spotted something a bit bigger in amongst them. When I lifted my bins I had a stonking red-rumped swallow only 20 foot away from away me, Janet was quickly on to it too.

Of course I had no camera with me, the new DSLR and my mobile phone were in the car...and I'd only brought the 50mm lens - useless! I dashed back to the car and phoned out the news, returning to the poo pits as I did so. I was still phoning out the news when Janet said "it's landed on the roof [of the nearby building]"..it couldn't have I was still watching it. It was then we realised we were watching TWO red-rumped swallows.

Once the news was out, I dashed home for a bigger lens and managed a few record shots.

Underside view showing diagnostic black vent/undertail coverts and rusty coloured ear coverts

This shot shows red-brown band behind head and obvious pale rump with a narrow rusty band nearest to the body.

Another shot of the underside showing rusty colouredsides to the head

The only shot I got of the two in the same frame.

A decent sized twitch assembled on the coast road, it was a Northumberland-tick for many local birdwatchers including me, in fact the pair had doubled my British tally.

It was soon back to reality for us though, nets needed checking and birds needed to be ringed. We had a successful mornings ringing too with a good catch of warblers and some local breeders.

My luck didn't continue this afternoon, I went to Druridge and saw bugger all.