Thursday 26th November

The coal tits continue to raid the bird table in numbers and the robin tries in vain to chase them off.  They are very agile and quick and flight and have become a bit of a favourite.

On Wednesday I followed the twitchers again to see if I could get a decent view of the crossbills at Rising Sun Country Park  Not knowing where they were, I followed the Brown Trail and looked out for conifers,

A slight diversion to a small pond just South of the car park revealed four or five gadwall at closer range than the ones I saw at Holywell but shortly after I met a couple of birdwatchers who said they had found the twitchers but the crossbills had disappeared.  I thought they meant permanently.

Gadwall

However I continued with Plan A, figuring that there seemed to be a good deal of conifers around so that the crossbills may just have been displaced to a slightly different area of the park.

So I walked on not seeing anything of note apart from a couple of suspected fieldfare/redwing until near the end of the path I encountered the twitchers who told me that the crossbills had been there until about three hours ago when a sparrowhawk flushed them and they hadn't been back since.

I decided to come back another day and was heading dor the car park when I saw a chap with binoculars peering into some deciduous trees at the edge of a farm field.  Sure enough it was the crossbills warily edging along the woodland border.  

Crossbill

It was a typical lucky encounter - the right bird on the wrong kind of tree in the wrong location.  Having a last minute success when I had effectively given up looking is however something that has happened to me quite a number of times now.

Yesterday we did another joint bike ride in the Mitford area.  I was just relating the story of having spotted a heron at the top of a tree and failing to photograph it when we saw a heron at the top of a tree in exactly the same place.  Once again it made off when the camera came out.  

Averaging 10.3 mph we didn't notice much more until a lot of honking near Dinnington revealed the presence of a large number of geese in a field.  I took a couple of photos to check for pink-footed geese but it seems they were all greylags.

Friday 20th November

An interesting few days have elapsed recently.

On Tuesday a friend and I agreed to make the best of limited time by combining a coastal bike ride with a checkup on some birdwatching spots.  The first spot was Seaton Sluice where astonishingly a swift has been sighted.  I arrived with the news that it had supposedly moved on to St Mary's Island and that I hadn't seen anything noticeable while checking the proposed locations en route.

We decided therefore to give Seaton Sluice a miss and head straight for St Mary's, where we didn't see much of note on looking into the nature reserve apart from a few teal and possibly a couple of tufted ducks - albeit more than I saw on the way up.

We rode slowly along the causeway as I was hoping to possibly see some snow buntings but no sign.  There didn't look to be much on the rocks either but when we dismounted to cross over to the island, what should fly straight over our heads but the aforementioned swift!  Heaven knows what it is doing here when it should have flown to Africa two months ago.

Preparing to feed seal pup

As soon as we started to move, some walkers pointed out that the Seal Rescue Service van was trying to get past us and we arrived at the lighthouse in time to see the seal being fed so it could be released back into the sea.  This didn''t look too pleasant as it involved one guy sitting on it while it was effectively force fed by the other.

Meanwhile the story amongst the spectators was that someone had reported it as having been abandoned and injured although the Rescue Service had found nothing wrong with it.

Eventually it was able to flap over the rocks into the water, where we think its mother may have been waiting for it Difficult to say though as seals were popping their heads out all over the place.

After this unexpected excitement we cycled on to Tynemouth but got there too late to see the black redstart that regularly visits as the tide had come in and covered the pierside rocks.  However two out of three ain't bad...

On Thursday I decided on and out an out twitch and made my way again to Morpeth, where, contrary to my last post, hawfinches have been turning up again.

At the time this seemed a frustrating experience.  The birds were definitely there and I could see them moving about with the naked eye but it was obvious that the other twitchers there were much better at picking them out and were getting close-ups in their big telescopes and photographing them.

I ended up taking photos on the off chance, so it was quite fortuitous when I managed to get four of them in the same shot.

Spot the Hawfinches!

They are of course pretty elusive and my attempts to get shots of individual birds fared little better.  As darkness moved in and people started to pack up the large telescopes, I got a clear sighting of one bird in a separate tree but the light was by now too tricky to show up much detail.

Elusive Hawfinch

Hawfinch at dusk

Overall though a much better session than my earlier visit to Sizergh Castle. 

Things have been happening in the garden too.  The coal tits have been visiting the bird table in numbers again, much to the anooyance of the resident robin.

And today there was a visit from a bullfinch to the neighbours' garden in search of berries - the first since early this year.

Bullfinch

Sunday 15th November

 A variety of bits and bobs have caught my attention over the past week or so.

A bike trip to Stamfordham didn't reveal much except for a few long-tailed tits and a fleeting sighting of a reed bunting.

A considerable surprise this week was to see a couple of pigeons getting fruity with each other in the birches behind the garden.  Surely they didn't think Spring had already arrived?  It's been pretty mild.

I often wonder where all the food on the bird table goes to.  Usually it disappears when as soon as I turn my back and I tend to blame the jackdaws.  The other day I got a pleasant surprise when I witnessed  eight or ten coal tits visiting in quick succession and departing each time with a few seeds.  At one point there was half a dozen strung out between the clothes on the washing line.  Usually it's just the odd one or two.  Maybe I'm too hasty in blaming the jackdaws.

Last weekend I was in Dumfries and went with the family to RSPB Mersehead.  The weather was questionable and sightings limited as a result.  My son wanted to see the barnacle geese, which was as ever not a problem to arrange.

Barnacle Geese

From Bruaich Hide we could see a few teal and wigeon and one of the former was preening itself to reveal the green underwing patch.  Unfortunately we had to wear masks which steamed up my glasses and when the young ones went outside for a clearer view, everything took flight.

We moved on to Meida Hide where there was just a few greylags but in time for the starling murmuration, which was pretty impressive and lasted for a good half hour.

Murmuration

I knew there was a murmuration at Mersehead but I thought it was considerably smaller.  Comparing it to the one at Gretna/Rockcliffe, I noticed that the birds flew in a broader formation.  It was almost as if they were hoovering up smaller groups of starlings.  At Gretna, the formation was higher and did not cover such a wide area.

On the Monday I checked out St Michael's Churchyard for waxwings.  As suspected, there weren't any yet though the yewberries have started to ripen and blackbirds were eating them.  I was interested to see an unexpected nuthatch climbing up one of the walls, and later a song thrush.

On Thursday I took a bike ride from Kirkley to Abbey Mill near Morpeth, where hawfinches had been sighted several days in succession.  I was very conscious of the sod's law of binoculars, which postulates that if you don't take binoculars, you will see something of interest in the distance.  Sure enough approaching Saltwick, I reckoned I could see some visiting throstles feeding in the fields at about 300m range.  Depending only on my camera, I took a few shots to see if I could identify them later - only to then find I'd picked out a group of starlings!  From what I could make out from views in flight, I reckoned that the winter visitors were pretty much entirely fieldfares.  Probably most redwings are still feasting on berries.

As to the hawfinches, my main aim was to establish precisely where they had been seen.  After a bit of a wander I managed to find the twitchers who were looking for them. They reported that there had been no sightings so far.  My immediate instinct was that the hawfinches had moved on and, sure enough, no further sightings have resulted.  I hope it wasn't my high-vis cycling jacket that scared them... or maybe it was the high-vis leggings of the lady joggers who also passed through.

On Friday I did a walk at East Cramlington Nature Reserve with a friend in the hope of finding some crossbills.  In the event  it turned out to be more of a survival exercise as we ended up on a muddy track next to a drain.  Afterwards we took a look at the well-stocked bird feeders nearing dusk, when I was surprised to see an unexpected bird coyly visiting the feeders.  At first I thought it was a linnet but expert advice suggests it is a female reed bunting.

Reed Bunting

I've never seen either species on a feeder before.

Thursday 4th November

 Having heard that there were crossbills and siskins in some numbers at East Cramlington Pond, I set off there a week ago.

The search was somewhat complicated by the fact there seems to be two locations answering to that name.  The one I found first was the Nirthumberland Wildlife Trust Reserve, which was pretty quiet but there were some honey bees around the artificial hives and some redwing in the trees on the western side, which was in sun.

I'd noticed there was an area of conifers to the North and headed towards them, thinking that they were more likely to attract crossbills and siskins.  Here there was another larger and less overgrown pond and a quite extensive area calling itself East Cramlington Nature Reserve.  I scouted around a good deal without seeing or hearing virtually anything but eventually did hear birds moving around the edge of one area.  Most of these proved to be long-tailed and other tits but I did briefly pick out one siskin among them.  No crossbills though.

With some time available, I moved on to Holywell Pond, where a spoonbill was reported about ten days earlier.  I missed the main path down to the pond after trouble parking and ended up approaching from the waggonway.

I found the area I took to be Holywell Pond, a wide area of shallow water set in ploughed farmland.  There were a few ducks at distance, which look to have been gadwall and in retrospect were a pleasing spot.

Gadwall

On setting off again, I could catch sight of another expanse of water which proved to be the real Holywell Pond, though in fact it produced less interesting sightings - just a few swans and gulls and some tufted ducks.

Yesterday, the spectacular sightings of a fortnight ago no longer much in evidence, I decided to take a coastal walk north from Newbiggin, watching out for any twite.

A very white gull with red legs landed briefly in front of me but eluded the camera and I had to puzzle
out what it might be afterwards.  The most likely explanation seems to be black-headed gull - without the black head of course.

Eider Duck

Down on the foreshore I got a good view of a rock pipit but on the whole there wasn't much about in the morning beyond gulls, cormorants and a good head of pied wagtails.

There were some smaller birds about but annoyingly they all seem to fly straight over me and into the sun, carried away quickly by a moderate breeze.  The only ones that landed took fright too quickly to be identified.

Further along I did see an eider duck diving repeatedly.

It was amazing to reflect that a hoopoe briefly turned up in the Lynemouth area, having first made land at Newbiggin.  I had no expectation that it would still be there, especially if it was as unimpressed by the scenery around the old aluminium smelter as I was.  Curiously though, there were a few stonechats in the bushes around th outflow from the mine contamination processing plan, which was about the same colour as them - rust red.

Things were a bit more lively as there were a good number of waders active as the tide moved in.  There were a few redshanks and some turnstone amongst others, and a lot more brown birds which were very quick to take flight when I approached.

On reflection, I suspect though that they were all rock pipits.

Rock Pipit