New Sightings

Not a bad past ten days even if the bird rarities aren't showing up in the numbers they were last year.

A week ago on Monday I decided to finally walk a stretch near Gosforth Golf Course, where I knew ring-necked parakeets had once been seen.

A few hundred metres after the start, an old chap with a crutch stopped to chat and told me that parakeets are often in the trees in the area where we were standing, but weren't there today as he would have heard them squawking.

I can't have gone on fifty yards before I did hear squawking and could make them out in the trees overhead, about four in total I reckoned This was a fair slice of luck as hardly anyone else I encountered muttered even hallo unlike most areas I visit.

For the rest of the walk I didn't see anything much beyond a few goldfinches even though I ventured into a North Tyneside designated ecozone, which was actually a rather unpromising strip of land sandwiched between the North end of Longbenton and an industrial estate.

On the way back I was wondering what else I had hoped to see and came to the conclusion it was redpolls, which turned up in some number at the end of last January.

Anyway, the parakeets were still in situ in the same couple of trees when I ended the walk and seemed to be pretty static, not crashing around all over the place like when I saw them in Brussels.

Ring-necked Parakeet

This was the first time I have seen a parakeet in this country.  They are in the region but not in anything like the numbers in the South East.

The day after was a bike ride to Belsay, when I heard skylarks for the first time in a while and spotted a yellowhammer in a hedgerow.  There were also a couple of buzzards, a kestrel and a probable sparrowhawk.

I tried a walk round Shibdon Pond at the weekend, an area that always strikes me as attractive but doesn't produce much of interest.  Apart from large numbers of barnacle goose, I did manage to spot some shelduck and tufted duck on the pond itself.

Shelduck

Tufted Duck

The other thing I have noticed in the past few days is that a robin has started visiting the peanut feeders, not something that I've ever seen before as far as I can recall.  I'm wondering if it's something they've learned from the numerous tits..  The winter has so far been mild so you wouldn't think food was in especially short supply.