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