Finally feels like spring!

With a much improved weather forecast yesterday morning we decided to have a family trip to the Harthope Valley, one of my favourite locations to combine birding and a family picnic!

We only stayed around the Hawsen Burn but still saw a nice selection of birds. Here's the highlights...

1 Cuckoo
10+ Whinchat
1 Wheatear
3+ Grey Wagtail
1 Redstart
2 Ring Ouzel
2+  Raven

We were also told about a couple of male Adders which gave great views in among some rocks.

After getting home we headed to Big Waters to try and catch up with a few of the influx of Black Terns. Sure enough a group of 10 stunning adult Black Terns we feeding over the lake and showed well in the afternoon sun. These were my first Black Terns which weren't autumn juveniles. I had to make do with record shots of the Terns as they were slightly too far away for the DSLR and I had to resort to digiscoping...

Adder

Whinchats - the males never cam close!

Singing male Ring Ouzel

Chaffinch

Black Terns - digiscoping terns isn't easy!

Upland Wildlife

I had an enjoyable day in the north of Northumberland. First off another try for Adder at Branton Gravel Pits, this time with some more info, kindly provided to me through twitter.

After a brief search and a few stops to photograph the many singing Willow Warblers, we found 2 Adders basking. They hardly moved while I was photographing them, and I was able to get very close. A couple of Blackcaps were also singing there.

Ring Ouzels were the next target, and we had hardly pulled up in the car park at Harthope Valley before we heard one. A short trek up the valley produced 4 Ring Ouzels altogether: two males and two females. 3 Wheatears were also there as well as more Willow Warblers and plenty of Red Grouse.

Adders

Ring Ouzel

Willow Warblers