Exciting August birding...

 At the moment I am lucky enough to be dividing my time between living at home in Northumberland and living in my uni house down in Norwich.

This week I am back up north, and on Sunday I had the chance to catch up with some of the good birds on offer along the Northumberland coast. First up was the Pacific Golden Plover at Longhoughton Steel which gave some really good views just underneath the small cliffs. Much more confiding than the Holy Island bird of last year, we were able to really appreciate this smart bird throughout the time we spent on site. 

Not only was the Plover showing well, there were also decent numbers of seabirds passing offshore. They included at least two juvenile Long-tailed Skuas and a second calendar-year Pomarine Skua, along with several Arctic and Great Skuas, three Sooty Shearwaters, plenty of Manx Shearwaters and a few Roseate Terns. 

Next we stopped at Druridge Bay Country Park, where the moulting adult White-winged Black Tern was performing well in the drizzle although rarely coming close to the shore. 

Finally, the low water levels on the north pool at East Chevington is proving attractive to waders at the moment, with a smart juvenile Spotted Redshank being the best. The regular turn over of other juvenile waders has been good to see too. 

 

Pacific Golden Plover

White-winged Black Tern

An exciting seawatch...

Yesterday we spent around seven hours at Church Point, Newbiggin. My target for the day was Pomarine Skuas and we sat through thunderstorms and hail without success. We did manage a nice selection of birds including a Little Auk, Red-necked Grebe and Sooty Shearwater, as well as 4 Scaup among large numbers of wildfowl. Birds in off included a Short-eared Owl and Woodcock.

Feeling a little bit frustrated about the lack of Poms, we decided to head back out this morning, and almost immediately we realised we were in for a better day. 3 superb Pomarine Skuas flew north inside the first ten minutes along with several Little Auks.

Over the next five hours or so, we had another 2 Pomarine Skuas including one superb adult very close in, and at 11:10 I picked up a Leach's Petrel going north about half way out. This was a lifer for me and a bird I've been wanting to see for a long time! Great stuff!

Here's some selected counts 07:15-11:40...

1 Leach's Petrel
5 Pomarine Skuas
37 Little Auk
24 Velvet Scoter
11 Manx Shearwater
1 Sooty Shearwater
6 Great Northern Diver
1 Black-throated Diver
25 Long-tailed Duck
1 Great Skua

Pomarine Skua

Images from Bardsey...

A huge thanks to Bardsey Bird Observatory who hosted their annual Young Birder's Trip last week, and which I was fortunate to attend. We had a great week on the island, and can't wait to return. A bit short of time, I haven't been able to write much about the week, but here's a selection of photos from the island...

Chough

Spotted Flycatcher

Wheatears - adult and juveniles.

Marsh Harrier - juvenile.

Fulmar

Grey Seals

There were plenty of Willow Warblers around, as well as smaller numbers of Chiffchaffs.

Raven

Manx Shearwaters - adult and chick, as well as a recording of the calls of some of the adults below...

Storm Petrels ringed overnight

Juvenile Herring Gull in front of the Welsh mainland

Hummingbird Hawkmoth

Grayling Butterflies

Small Copper

Autumn Lady's Tresses Orchid

Personally, my highlight of the week were the daily sightings of Risso's Dolphins, including a great display at sunset on the 6th. The above video really fails to do that display justice but it was the best I could get! Please view the video in HD at 1080p.

The Milky Way over the south end. Not the best photo!

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!

Sabine's Gull

After seeing some good reports from elsewhere on the coast we decided to head out for a bit of seawatching at Snab Point this afternoon. We stayed for about an hour and a half, with close Great and Arctic Skuas good to see, as was one of the Sooty Shearwaters being reasonably close inshore.

However the highlight came at 4:26pm when I got onto an interesting gull coming north. We quickly realised that it was a juvenile Sabine's Gull and I was able to take some record video of the bird as the slow flight and long range meant it was on view for a good few minutes.

Our totals for the 90 minutes included 3 Sooty and 3 Manx Shearwaters, 8 Great and 7 Arctic Skuas and a lone Pintail and male Velvet Scoter.

Highlights of two and a half hours at Newbiggin yesterday included 4 Sooties, 29 Manxies, 6 Velvet Scoters and 4 Taiga Bean Geese expertly identified by some of the other birders on site.

I've had to stablise the video which means it doesn't look as high quality as it should, although it is best viewed in HD by selecting 1080p on the youtube website or app.

Sabine's Gull

Decent...

We've had a couple of mornings out since returning from the Outer Hebrides. This morning a seawatch at Newbiggin was quiet with the highlights being a group of three Velvet Scoters and a dozen Manx Shearwaters.

On our way to Druridge Pools, a stop at the north end of Cresswell produced the adult White-rumped Sandpiper on the beach opposite. Upon reaching the Budge Fields, the number of Black-tailed Godwits had increased to 56.

There was a greater variety here on Monday, including a Spotted Redshank, 3 Green Sandpipers, a Wood Sandpiper and a juvenile Garganey.

Finally, at Hadston it felt a bit like autumn with a Redstart among a few phylloscs and Robins flitting around the hawthorns...

Redstart

White-rumped Sandpiper - not quite the kind of views we had a week ago on North Uist but still good to see!

Great Skua passing Newbiggin

Whitethroat

Sparrowhawk - briefly sat on a fence post just metres from the Budge Screen!