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