Finally....We caught a twite

I spent today off the patch, not even on the mainland - I was marooned on Coquet Island.

If you've read this rubbish since I started writing my blog, you may recall our mission to ring twite and how we have failed miserably for six years. Well today we finally ringed a twite on the Northumberland coast

Our first efforts were concentrated in the National Trust paddock, just to the south of the plantation at Druridge. The NTBC funded us to buy some niger seed with the hope of colour-ringing twite as part of the national scheme. For two winters we baited the area up but couldn't encourage the twite to leave their favoured habitat of the denuded dunes at Hemscotthill, feeding on weed seeds amongst the silage used to feed the over-wintering beast.

Everything else ate the niger, including rooks!

So plan B was hatched when I discovered that Coquet Island holds a twite flock each autumn.

Year 1 - Natural England permission wasn't received before the twite left
Year 2 - It snowed
Year 3 - Every trip aborted because of the weather.
Year 4 - Finally today, we caught our first twite.

The first twite to be colour-ringed on the Northumberland Coast

The Coquet twite appear to leave the Island once the food has gone or it snows, heading for saltmarsh or dunes on the mainland?

We hope to catch some more before they leave, but even if we don't, please keep an eye open for colour-ringed twite on the coast this winter. We still don't know where our wintering twite breed, so hopefully some more colour-ringed birds might shed some light. Here is Coquet Island lighthouse shedding its own light at dusk tonight.

Golden

Two brief visits to the patch today between chores.

It was bright and cold today with brisk westerly wind, I tramped around the northern end of the patch. No snow buntings to be seen on the beach, Dave Elliott must have tempted them north to feast on pin-head oats or whatever else he's been spreading.

There was a huge flock goldfinches in the dunes, maybe 250 or more, they're feeding on burdock and thistle seeds.

Some of the goldfinches

The finches weren't the only golden thing in the sky.

RAF Boulmer 202 Squadron flying over Druridge. I will miss seeing these when they go.

This evening I had a look for a black-throated diver that had been reported on the sea off the plantation. No sign of it, but plenty red-throated divers and a great-crested grebe.

Swift Exit

After a look around the plantation and bushes by the entrance to Druridge, having seen a chiffchaff, great-spotted woodpecker, goldcrests and Ian Douglas of note, I was chatting to Roger Foster when he said 'I've got a swift'

Any swift in October requires a grilling. Unfortunately this bird was already quite distant and was heading north. It did bank around, three or four times, even looking like it might head south once, but it didn't. I saw it briefly in the scope before we lost it as continued north.

We had nothing better than silhouetted views in very poor light against the sky. At times, when it banked, the wing-tips looked sharp and when it banked again they looked blunter. Pallid swift has to be a possibility at this time of year but we couldn't do anything with it at this distance and in this light. Pallid/common swifts can be tricky in Spain with stunning light against the hills.so this one will go int he notebook as 'Swift sp'

I had an hour on the big dune, scanning the skies - nothing.

Seemingly it, or another swift, was seen again mid-afternoon. I don't know who by.

There was a bit of vizmig today, with groups of skylarks going over, a few pied wags and meadow pipits and a flock of redpolls headed south. A steady stream of herring gulls also headed south. A peregrine put up the gulls and lapwings from the fields - my first of the year unbelievably.

I was back on the patch in the afternoon after three snow buntings were reported on the beach by the turning circle. They'd moved south a bit (thanks for the wave Neil) just beyond the blockhouse.

After been absent from Druridge for a few years, I've connected with snow bunting in the last three winters.

Snow Buntings

167 peregrine

168 snow bunting

The weekend

Time on the patch was limited this weekend due the Toon kicking off at 12.45 yesterday. This meant two things;

1) Limited birding time on Saturday morning to catch the 10.30 bus
2) A guaranteed hangover this morning as we were going out for dinner after the match

So I had an hour or so on the patch yesterday morning before heavy rain set in. There were newly-arrived blackcaps and blackbirds in the plantation and willows by the entrance. It was quiet, so I gathered some field mushrooms to go in my pre-match bacon butty and headed home.

field mushrooms

The predicted hangover wasn't as bad as I expected, so I was down on the patch for 11am. The rain hadn't dropped many birds in, the plantation being virtually bird-less other than a fly-in great spotted woodpecker, I saw two more great-spots later too.

12 lesser redpols flew over and kept going. The other bushes were quiet too, with only a few goldcrests of note

goldcrests

Dave Elliot's goosander had gone from the pool, but I picked up three together offshore. There were 6 red-throated divers on the sea.

166 Goosander

Ringing and stuff

I had a quick pre-work visit to Druridge yesterday morning and spent an hour in the plantation. Highlight was a pied flycatcher, quite late I though, so I gave it a good grilling but it was nothing rare than a pied fly.

There were a three or four chiffchaffs, one very grey bird called like a Sibe, the others were bog standard chiffs. Three swallows flew south, a few goldcrests flitted about and handful of redwings were present.

I took this afternoon off. Today looked like the only day of the week that would be suitable for ringing. I had a good session, catching 24 new birds. A chiffchaff was the only warbler in the nets, also caught eight long-tailed tits (another 12 flew south), three goldcrests and assorted tits, fiches and wrens.

A great-spotted woodpecker passed through the bushes.

Once I had packed the ringing site up, I had a look offshore were the highlight was a drake velvet scoter leading the pack north as it was being followed by 21 common scoters.

It as a fab sunset tonight, took this with my knackered old phone on its last day before I join the 'iphone generation'

165 pied flycatcher (first since 2010)

Ten year ringing report

Bird Ringing as part of the BTO ringing scheme has taken place at Druridge since April 2003. To mark the the tenth season of ringing, we decided to write a 'ten-year ringing report' which we have been slaving over for the last ten months.

Well it is finally here. The report contains species accounts for all of the species 58 ever ringed at Druridge with some interesting graphs and tables as well as maps of recoveries and controls and interesting histories of re-trapped birds.

We hope you find it interesting. You can download a copy here as pdf but be warned it is nearly 10mb.

Download a copy of the report

Cornflake???

Looking at the pressure charts last week, this weekend looked very promising. It didn't fail to deliver, with some excellent seawatching on Friday, but a classic fall of migrants didn't happen.

Yesterday (Saturday) morning started damp, with light rain/mizzle ruling out a seawatch, so I concentrated my efforts on the bushes and gave the patch a good trashing.

Other than a few goldcrests, there wasn't much to get excited about until lunchtime, when pursuing a thrush-sized passerine, I flushed a crake from an area of thick, dry, nettle. It was quite large, but smaller than a moorhen, it's legs were dangling as it flew, briefly over the nearest hawthorns. It didn't call. It was silhouetted against the sky, so it looked generally dark (but anything would in that light). The dangling legs reminded me immediately of corncrake.

I headed off in the same direction, holding out little hope of seeing it again as I didn't see it land, as I approached a hawthorn thicket, a bird took off, through the branches, clattering them as it went, making nearly as much racket as a woodpigeon. It emerged out of the top of the bushes, legs dangling....my crake again. Again it flew north, this time I never saw it again. Probably a cornflake but not clinched. Another one gets away. A 'Country Barn' pasty and mars bar crispie cake was required.

I tried an afternoon seawatch but the light and visibility were awful.


Today was WeBS count day. A dunlin on the big pools was the highlight of the count. There was nothing of note in the bushes and a 40 minute seawatch was unproductive with two manx shearwaters and five red-throated divers (in a group) the only highlights.