Lockdown images

Here are a few of my highlights from the current lockdown (some taken with my DSLR and some phonescoped). It has been surprisingly productive despite having not been outside the five mile radius of my house!

Todd's Canada Goose with Pink-feet in the fields near Longhirst Flash on the 29th of January - likely the same bird that I found at Hadston in December. I didn't expect to come across it again!

A nice juvenile Iceland Gull along with the returning Hooded Crow near the entrance to Linton Pond this morning. 

One of at least six Twite with the Linnets at West Shield Hill.

Dipper

Female Goosander

Lockdown update...

Just realised it's nearly two months since my last post on here so here's a little update on my limited birding since the lockdown started a few weeks ago...

We are lucky to live within walking distance of Bothal Pond, so a two or three times a week we are heading there on our daily walk to see what's going on. Two female Scaup have been present throughout and other highlights have included a flyover Marsh Harrier, Egyptian Goose, Black-tailed Godwit and Wheatears.

Otherwise, we have also been having a few walks around the woodland and farmland close to home. Probably my favourite find so far has been Willow Tits in what I think is a new site for the declining species. We've also seen variety of other common species, and in a way it's been nice to take the chance to appreciate these.

Spending more time at home has led to three firsts for the garden so far: nocmig Common Scoter, flyover Goosanders and, most excitingly, a Red Kite yesterday afternoon - just my third in Northumberland.

Here's a few of my photos taken during lockdown so far, and I'll try to post any more I take over the coming weeks...

Willow Tits

Scaup

Male and female Grey Wagtails

Willow Warbler

Chiffchaff

Common Buzzard

Red Kite - a panicked record shot through my bedroom window!

Comma

A successful day...

With a couple of reports of Black Guillemot at Cheswick last week, we decided that we would target catching up with one today as it was easily the commonest bird missing from our county list.

While the light wasn't great first thing, we gave it an hour or two on Holy Island. There was no sign of yesterday's Shore Larks but a Snow Bunting flew over and we did see 18 Twite and a Short-eared Owl.

Next we did head to Cheswick and parked by the railway bridge. We walked through the dunes and started scanning the sea, and it wasn't long before my dad did pick up a first-winter Black Guillemot about half way out. We watched it for a while, but once it started diving it was really difficult to get onto again.

Having not seen one (it?) for seven years, we also hoped to see the drake Black Scoter while we were here. As we walked north, we noticed a small group scoter just off Cheswick Black Rocks. Setting up the scope revealed the Black Scoter with some female Commons. We enjoyed some really good views of this bird - much better than we were expecting.

Other birds off Cheswick included a Great Northern Diver, Long-tailed Duck, Red-breasted Mergansers and a Goosander. 

Black Scoter - with female Common Scoters

Black Guillemot obviously!

More decent seawatching!

We've had a good run of seawatching this year with highlights up to today including Cory's Shearwater, Sabine's Gull, Storm Petrel and two White-billed Divers. We weren't as hopeful about today when we set off this morning, but were pleased to be proved wrong in the end!

We decided to start at Hadston Carrs and it wasn't long before we had our first Little Auk of the morning heading north. We stayed for two hours but it was pretty quiet with the highlight perhaps being a single Snow Bunting flying north past below the small cliff. Here's the totals for Hadston (09:30-11:30)...

2 Little Auk
10 Goldeneye
1 Long-tailed Duck
1 Little Egret
1 Snow Bunting
1 Great Northern Diver
3 Red-throated Diver
2 Great Crested Grebe

We then took a break for lunch and checked a quiet Druridge Pools before deciding to have another look at the sea from Snab Point. With rougher seas and the wind coming more from the north, our two and a half hours here were much more productive.

There were a few more Little Auks passing now and I got onto a distant Grey Phalarope which kept on disappearing behind waves. A second-winter Glaucous Gull suddenly appeared over the rocks and was close enough to make out the pale iris through binoculars. The Grey Phalarope reappeared much closer feeding in the surf and a second more distant bird flew north at speed shortly afterwards. After one had been seen earlier I was pleased to now be able add it to my finds list. Another finds tick for me came shortly afterwards when I picked up a lark flying straight towards us at distance. Despite the long range, its pale face was visible and as it got closer we could see that it lacked a white-trailing edge to the wings, confirming it as a Shore Lark.

It quietened down shortly after this but just as we were about to leave a Little Auk appeared flying over the rocks before landing in a rock pool, and I was able to get within a couple of metres of it,  providing easily my best ever views! The totals from Snab Point 12:45-15:20 were as follows...

2 Grey Phalarope
16 Little Auk
1 Glaucous Gull
1 Slavonian Grebe
1 Great Skua
1 Manx Shearwater
3 Goldeneye
1 Goosander
1 Grey Plover
1 Shore Lark

Little Auk - second photo taken on my phone without any zoom!

Northerlies deliver!

We set out to Newbiggin this morning with quite high hopes as the pressure charts for the previous night looked quite good. However, when we arrived it was a bit quiet with just a couple of Manx Shearwaters and Great Skuas going past. An hour and a half later we were even contemplating going somewhere else when we saw that a White-billed Diver had been seen passing Whitburn.

Over the next twenty minutes or so reports filtered in of a bird passing a number of sites in Tyneside. It was at around 10:57 that my dad picked up a diver coming north.

The bird was more distant than we were expecting, although the sun caught it and revealed the ivory yellow bill of my first ever White-billed Diver, and with its head and neck appearing all black, this bird was still in its summer plumage. We were really pleased to see it despite it being a lot further out than we had hoped for.

However, twenty minutes later I got onto two more divers going north and realised that alongside a Great Northern Diver was another White-billed Diver. This WBD was in winter plumage and was incredibly close in providing some awesome scope views and a great comparison to the Great Northern next to it.

It quietened down again after this although at 12:45 I picked up a European Storm Petrel about half way out, which was my first on a seawatch. The sea was relatively calm so some more good scope views were had.

Here's our full totals for 08:30-13:30...

2 White-billed Diver
1 European Storm Petrel
17 Goldeneye
7 Long-tailed Duck
6 Red-throated Diver
34 Common Scoter
2 Manx Shearwater
3 Great Northern Diver
11 Whooper Swan
3 Great Skua
3 Red-breasted Merganser
1 Arctic Tern
1 Goosander
5 Mallard
1 Velvet Scoter
9 Teal

The second White-billed Diver - © Chris Barlow

The best I could manage (White-billed on the left, Great Northern on the right)

Arctic Tern

Also a few other bits from the last week...

Two of three Velvet Scoter off Chevington.

Shore Lark and Snow Buntings at Chevington

Yellow-browed Warbler calling near Snab Point

Pec double

I mentioned to my dad as we were leaving home today that I'd like to find a Pec Sand in the area as there had been quite a few reports from other counties recently, although didn't actually have very much hope...

Our first stop was Hauxley where a few hours produced a good count of at least 108 Black-tailed Godwits, as well as 2 Ruff, a Common Sandpiper and a Knot among the more usual waders. The Estuary at Amble held 77 Black-tailed Godwits which included a lot more adults than at Hauxley, so it is possible that there are some very large numbers in the area. One was colour-ringed, and a Kingfisher and 6 Goosanders gave good views, while the injured Whooper Swan was visible towards Warkworth.

Next we headed to Druridge Pools and were pleased to see our first juvenile Curlew Sandpiper of the year when we arrived, as well as a Greenshank, 5 Ruff and 30+ Dunlin. We walked around to the south facing hide and gave it about twenty minutes. We were just getting ready to move on when I decided to have a last scan of the far edge looking back towards the screen.

I noticed a bird feeding alongside a Redshank which I thought looked interesting - it was slightly larger than a Dunlin with quite a pot-bellied look and I thought I could see a sharply defined dark chest - although the views were very distant, which combined with the heat haze to make confirming it impossible. I headed back down the path to view from the NE corner but there was no sign.

On reaching the screen again I set the scope and started scanning the Dunlin and was pleased to see a really smart juvenile Pectoral Sandpiper feeding among them. I then realised the bird stood next to it was another Pec Sand! The first time I've seen more than one together, and a very welcome set of bonus points for Patchwork Challenge!

Cresswell was quieter with 8 Black-tailed Godwits, 2 Little Egrets and a Yellow Wagtail.

Pectoral Sandpipers - video should be viewed in HD at 720p/1080p

Curlew Sandpiper - video should be viewed in HD at 720p/1080p

Goosander

Stonechats

Willow Warbler

Showy Dowitcher...

An evening trip to Boulmer today proved very successful with superb views of the adult summer Long-billed Dowitcher on the beach below the village, as well as 3 Mediterranean Gulls, 3 juvenile Yellow Wagtails, a Whimbrel, 32 Goosanders and a surprise fly-over Wood Sandpiper...

Long-billed Dowitcher

Water Pipit influx...

We headed to the Budge Screen for an hour this evening and had a really nice selection of birds on the fields. Most unusual were the Water Pipits with five different individuals walking around on the wet grass. They were starting to moult into summer plumage with a nice pink wash to the underparts visible on some of them.

Also nice to see were a Great White Egret, a brief Short-eared Owl, 3 Pintail, 4 Black-tailed Godwits, a Little Egret, and surprisingly, both a female Goosander and a female Red-breasted Merganser.

Water Pipit - video best viewed in HD at 720p/1080p

Great White Egret

Spring underway...

Despite the cold, drizzly and dark weather yesterday morning, there were a few signs that spring is finally getting underway...

On arrival at Chevington the rain had forced 8 Sand Martins low over the pool. The Slavonian Grebe was still present on the pool along with 8 Scaup, but it seemed the Pacific Diver had finally moved off. A female Goosander had joined the 7 Red-breasted Mergansers and was my first of the year on the patch.

Whooper Swans were around in good numbers with 128 in the south pool and another 70 in a field just to the south-west. A walk down to the burn mouth produced 4 Shore Larks and a flyover Twite and Snow Bunting, while 3 Velvet Scoters were showing pretty well quite close offshore.

Other birds seen recently include 5 Avocets at Cresswell, several Chiffchaffs, 3 Scaup at Bothal Pond and a Short-eared Owl and 61 Whooper Swans at Longhirst Flash last weekend. My dad had a male Wheatear here this afternoon.

Shore Lark

Goosander with 3 Red-breasted Mergansers

Goosander

Velvet Scoter record shot!