Saturday 16th February

Hot on the heels of the water rail success on Monday, I decided to try my luck with the snow buntings at St Mary's Island again. As driving there by any route is a nuisance and the weather was improving, I decided to cycle there from the Quayside, overruling my better judgment that hi-vis jacket and samll binoculars might not be advisable.  I also found no room in my bag for a bird guide.

In fact it couldn't have worked out much better.  En route along cycle track 72, I saw about eight magpies in the same tree close to the Tyne Tunnel, and roughly the same number again round about - more than ever before in the same view.

I rode right through to St Mary's without stopping and immediately heard an invisible skylark over the adjacent fields.  Following the call of nature on the edge of the nature reserve, I got a good view of a curlew in the same field, as well as canada geese, mallard and teal in the reserve itself.  Then I cycled very slowly towards the lighthouse with camera and binoculars at the ready.

When looking for an uncommon bird, the best plan seems to be to not look for the bird but to watch out for a twitcher with a huge camera lens.  It worked again today as soon as I reached the second car park.  There was the twitcher and the three snow buntings were running around on the grassy slope eating seeds - one male and two females.

Snow Buntings

Snow buntings have the reputation of not being shy of humans and this little group was relatively unphased by most repeated disturbances, including amusingly that from the middle-aged bikers in the car park less than ten yards away, revving their throttles.

Occasionally the birds retired to the foreshore or the railings on the promenade but always came back while I sat for around half an hour having my lunch.

It was a flat, high tide and there wasn't much else about apart from a few cormorants.  I took a couple more looks into the reserve but only saw a group of redshanks on the pool if you discount these Dartmoor ponies that are employed to keep the vegetation down.

Dartmoor Ponies at work

There were stories of a black redstart at Tynemouth as well as a ring-necked parakeet in Newcastle but hey, I'd seen both of those in my travels to Europe.  So I decided to head back in a vain attempt to beat the rush hour.