The End Of Summer

It has been an ambition of mine for some while to coax the buddleia bushes into retaining enough blossoms past the end of September to attract a few last butterflies.  This year has to go down as a near miss.

A red admiral managed an appearance on the 29th September and there was a large white on the 30th but by today there are so few flowers left that it looks like there is no realistic chance of further visitors.

The last Red Admiral

Frustratingly I can't know if anything turned up in the good weather yesterday as Malcolm and I decided to go to Holy Island, where there had been a couple of sightings of a rustic bunting..

There it was still pretty much summer weather all day but we didn't see anything of great note - let alone the rustic bunting - and neither did anyone else we spoke to.  In fact we didn't see many birds at all in our wanderings.

There were a few sanderling and turnstone plodging in the mud near the pier, the latter seeming to be between their summer and winter suits.

Turnstones

Further along the bay there was a pair of eiders and a heron, but nothing in the Vicar's garden apart from one cockerel lying on a flower bed.

Male Eider Duck

We paused at a pub for liquid refreshment and shared a picnic bench with a number of crumb-stealing sparrows, the one species we did see a lot of, more in fact than I see anywhere nearer home. It was nice to see them close up.

Sparrows

Walking further around the island produced even more sparse results - mainly a stonechat posing nicely and this oversized owl.

Stonechat

Owl

We stopped at the bird hide where there were a large number of ducks on the shallow lake. However identification was difficult against the light and because they all had their heads tucked firmly down. In fact some of them looked like they were completely stuck in the mud. Definitely present were mallard, mute swan, coot, little grebe and probably teal.

It was pleasing not to see any dead birds but we did see this partly exposed human skeleton on the archaeological dig at the sight of a possible mediaeval monastery.

Skull

Presumably it belonged to a mediaeval monk rather than a twitcher who waited around too long for the rustic bunting.

Puffins and Terns

I now strongly feel I'm playing catch up on summer events and not winning.

Anyway, just over two weeks ago Vicki, Alex and I achieved a target by taking the Coquet Island boat trip.  On the way we made a brief trip to the Hauxley reserve, which however was somewhat disappointing.  The water was low, species fairly limited and the low sun made it hard to identify what was there.

We did catch up with some female eider ducks and thought we saw some little grebe but others were harder to identify.

Female Eider

? Duck

I was for example uncertain about the bird on the right above.

In fact we had better luck with non-avian species, coming across small tortoiseshell, common blue and common blue damselfly.

Common Blue

Common Blue Damselfly

Of course avian flu has been a factor all along the Northumberland coast but you wouldn't have thought so on sailing round Coquet Island, where there were still birds in big numbers.  Apparently the RSPB warden has been bagging up any dead birds for disposal.  A large number of atlantic seals just off the island suggested they had plenty to be interested in as well.

The main reason for going was to see the puffins for the first time and we saw plenty, even flying across our path when we were still a little way off the island.  There was a bit of a swell on and it was hard to hold the camera steady to get pictures with the boat tossing around.  But perseverance paid off in the end.

Puffin

Puffins

The rare roseate terns were also present and I could see the area where they were supposed to be.  Unfortunately I couldn't get clear photographs at all and could only really identify common, arctic and (without realising it at the time) sandwich tern.

Terns

The sandwich tern is the large, white bird in the centre of the near foreground above.  The arctic terns have lighter tail and trailers than the common terns - or so I understand.

Arctic Tern

But it was the puffins who were the real entertainment.

Saturday 10th April

 I noted some while back that spottings in my garden are a bit upside down in that birds that are normally common appear seldom - and vice versa.  A recent surprise was to spot two 'rarities' at the same time last week, a male garden sparrow and a siskin.  A female sparrow also turned up a couple of days later, as did briefly a goldfinch.  Both birds can be seen close at hand but don't usually visit the garden.  You'd really expect more siskins, given the amount of nearby woodland.

Siskin

To cap that I also got the best view I have ever had of a jay, which hung around for a couple of minutes just behind the bottom fence.  This happened while I was getting dressed upstairs, hence alas no photo.

The weather has done a major u-turn putting an end to butterfly sightings but Spring has now sprung and other species are abundant.  

A week ago on Friday Frances and I did a very scenic walk along the Blyth at Humford Mill near Bedlington.  There was wild garlic and other woodland flowers starting to come out all over the place, plus one plant I knew I recognised but needed to check - alternate leaf golden saxifrage.  There was less in the way of birdlife apart from a grey wagtail and a quick flash of a dipper flying downstream.

Grey Wagtail

Alternate Leaf Golden Saxifrage

Although the weather was already starting to cool there were a good few bumblebee queens on the move, one of which seemed to me on the basis of video evidence seemed to be a buff-tailed bumblebee.

One week later it was quite chilly when Malcolm and I set out from Low Newton to the outskirts of Beadnell against a northerly wind.

There were skylarks all over the place with a good number of meadow pipits, one of which posed nicely on a stretch of cut grass near a holiday park.

Meadow Pipit

It was one of those days when the further we walked, the more we saw.  By the time we got back we had also seen kestrels, stonechats, a flock of geese in flight that eventually landed at distance and looked to contain a mixture of greylag and pink-footed geese. there were a good few shelduck around, a couple of which were just about near enough to catch in the camera, though I never even spotted the curlew that was next to them.  A shallow pond produced a couple of gadwall and lapwing as well. however I was most pleased with a quick but unmistakeable view of a golden plover through the binoculars.

Shelduck - and curlew

Afterwards we stopped for a coffee back at Low Newton.  The tide was in and there was a proliferation of sanderling, redshank and oystercatchers on the crowded shoreline and a fleet of eider duck further out.

I reckoned there were some other small birds running around with the sanderling and took a few casual shots thinking to identify them later.  In fact I totally missed the foreshore and got instead a couple of blurred shots of birds in flight above the waves.  One had an upwardly curved beak but wasn't an avocet so I suppose possibly a godwit.  The other was a small wader but from what little I had looked more like illustrations of Temminck's Stint than the dunlin or knot I anticipated.  That however seems rather more unlikely.

If we had visited the foreshore at the beginning rather than the end of the day, I might have paid it more attention.

Monday 7th December

Having caught sight of a jay showing well on the edge of Chopwell Woods as I returned from the doctor's,  I decided to take a walk there last week.  This was also to test my theory that you see far less in the way of birdlife there than you would expect from what is an apparently attractive area.

The theory was pretty much proven.  I wandered around for an hour or two, trying to keep off the main tracks as much as possible.  Birdsong was notably absent as I went.  Eventually I caught sight of a nuthatch on a conifer and got one distant sighting of a jay in a tree.  There were a few tits singing in the trees on the way out but that was it.  Overall I think you're more likely to see deer there than a notable bird, but can't really say why.

I'd have seen more if I'd stayed in the garden, which is where I saw this female greenfinch a few days ago.  Getting the rear view first, I thought it might be a siskin, which would have been a garden first.  Something about this bird strikes me as not quite right  (too pale?) but greenfinches are certainly around although not on the feeder.

On Saturday I took advantage of some improved weather to track down the black redstart at Tynemouth.  It wasn't where I expected to find it. Instead there was an eider duck quite near to the shore.

Eider Duck

Eventually after fish 'n' chips I managed to locate a birdwatcher who told me where to look, just outside the pier rather than inside the harbour.  Others reported it hadn't been seen for  half an hour but when one left, it duly turned up, moving about the rocks and occasionally pursued by a jealous robin.

It was hard to get decent shots in the shade but once again "mission accomplished".  It seemed paler than the ones I have seen in Germany.

Black Redstart

Black Redstart

An additional bonus was a rock pipit patrolling the same area.

Rock Pipit

With some time available I moved on and did a walk from Seaton Sluice to St Mary's Island where there was at least a hundred lapwing at the water's edge just after low tide.  I looked for golden plover among them but instead found these waders at distance. 

Waders

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

Wednesday 11th March

Not being that keen on seabirds and waders, I was unsure about whether to go on the latest Naturewatch trip to Blyth, but reports of avocets in the estuary and improving weather finally persuaded me.

After taking a rather long time to spot some isolated sanderling and black headed gulls on the beach, where the main life forms were canine, we got a nice view of several pairs of eider duck in the harbour, where they were clearly begging for scraps as they bobbed around.

I was actually hoping to capture their cooing call which one member of the group aptly described as a Frankie Howerd imitation.

Things got even better when we walked along the estuary as a wide variety of species appeared, notably shelduck, teal, curlew, oystercatcher and goldfinch, as well as a grey seal that popped its head out a couple of times.

Having missed it on the Tyne at Hexham last winter, I was particularly pleased to get a reasonable sighting of a red-breasted merganser once it moved over into the river.

Red-breasted Merganser

This one appears to be imitating Boris Johnson.  

Of the avocets however, there was no sign.

Sunday 25th March

Following various legal delays, I ended up staying with friends and relatives before moving in to new house.

Malcolm and did a nice inland walk along the line of the restored Alnwick railway line, where we saw a couple of youngish goosanders scooting along the Aln after a good view of a wigeon at Amble the previous day. An eider duck also sailed in on the tide at some speed.

Wigeon

Waxwing

Joining my sister Hilary at the weekend, we did a bit of twitching in the hope of catching up with some waxwings that had been showing up in the middle of Forest Hall.  They were still there alright - two of them, also juveniles apparently.  It was hard to get a decent shot and this was the best I could manage.  The colouration seemed distinctly pale and I wondered if this is typical of young birds rather than the result of low sunshine.

These birds stayed in the same location for a fortnight or so and by the end of it, local residents were complaining about them.  They certainly weren't too shy about standing in the middle of the road to get a better view.

Our attempt to see a scaup on Killingworth Lake later in the day did not work out and mostly there were just more wigeon and a more adult (I thought) goosander plus swans / canada geese and other bits and pieces.

Goosander

Saturday 16th January

Spent a few days in Northumberland, which resulted in a lengthy walk at Low Newton.  Part of the idea was to check out the nature reserve that we discovered exists behind the Ship Inn - which was probably the source of the yellow-browed warbler reported in an earlier post.

In fact the beach was the main source of action.  Spent some time watching a cormorant sitting on a pile of rocks in the first bay, wondering if it might be a shag - interesting to find on researching more today that, according to bird-x.com 'There is no clear distinction between the term "cormorant" and "shag". ' Now that I didn't know!

Some usual suspects started turning up, i.e. greenshank, redshank and sanderling.  Further out some tufted ducks were fishing and once we passed a large outcrop of rocks, I was able to identify a pair of eider ducks even further out, messing around in the surface swell - so a first sighting.

On the way back to the pub, a large number of smaller birds were messing around by the kelp brought up by storms and I figured out they were rock pipits - another first sighting! By this time I was glad I had brought the bird book along, even though my fingers got pretty cold every time I got it out.  Just heading off the beach there were a few stonechats in the dunes.  I didn't need the bird book for them, but it was nice to see them again.

Stonechat

Rock Pipit - honest!

In fact the nature reserve, which was heavily flooded so the full path couldn't be covered, didn't have much to add to this.  Apart from more 'shanks, there were some greylag geese on the far side of the pond, too far away to see if other species were among them - plus a few wigeon and a single lapwing.

By now it was getting cold and we made it to the pub.