Getting Back into Birds

As the summer has faded into autumn, I've started to think more about birds.  In past years I've had some really good luck with birdwatching, which more recently has drained away.  I've increasingly suffered from bird blindness through looking down for butterflies and bees rather than scanning the skies and trees.

A week ago on Saturday, I was in Scotland to see my son and daughter in law, when we fitted in a brief trip to Baron's Haugh RSPB Reserve near Motherwell.  It was actually quite disappointing as not too much was showing - until I looked a bit more closely.

I got a quick early video of a kestrel deciding not to hover but the loch itself was pretty quiet apart from a few standards such as shoveler and lapwing.

Shoveler

Lapwing

There were a small number of waders that I reckoned at first sight to be insignificant but on closer inspection they turned out to be snipe.

Snipe

I was quite pleased about this as I've usually seen them furtively prowling through the reeds rather than in the open.

It was actually quite warm later in the afternoon and I counted four speckled wood flying around the trees.

Overall I haven't been too satisfied with the bird photographs I've taken on my new camera to date, so i asked my daughter in law for some ideas and she's adjusted some of the settings.

The first opportunity to try them out should have been last Tuesday, when I planned a trip to Holy Island to check for migrants but the weather was so appalling that I chickened out.

Instead I decided to visit Newbiggin this Tuesday, as one or two of the more rare buntings had been reported there.

As I wasn't heading for Norway, I skipped the pub and made my way instead onto Newbiggin Moor.

Last Pub before Norway

Working my way up the coastal path, I took opportunities to try out some distance shots of redshank with reasonable success, when I got a slight surprise.

Surprise Plover

Now I reckon on balance this was ring-necked rather than a lesser ring-necked plover, as these should now all have departed and there was no sign of a yellow ring around the eye. It was also the only one I spotted running around the beach. 

There were a few curlew around. one politely posing well on the golf course:

Curlew

I continued along to the point where people sometimes put bird food down and caught up with a numerous flock of linnets, but nothing more special.  Starting back however, I came across a chap lying in wait for a snow bunting  he'd seen briefly.  He also mentioned that a lapland bunting sometimes mingles with the linnets.  This eventually had me scouring the photos to see if I could transform a linnet into a lapland bunting - but it didn't work.

Linnets

Some of the males still had the last vestiges of their summer plumage.

My hands were getting cold so I didn't wait for the snow bunting.

On the way back I remembered a tip on holding the camera and got the best shot of a redshank, later running into a bird that puzzled me and clearly wasn't a redshank.  It turned out it was a turnstone, just didn't quite have the neck pattern I'm familiar with.

Redshank

Turnstone

The tide was just starting to go down and there was a typically large flock of golden plover winging around, landing and relanding.

Golden Plover

My last sighting was of a group of birds that were on the wet rocks near the cliff.  At first I thought there were starlings, which is the general opinion on facebook but on looking at the photo, I'm not so sure.

Starlings?

Some of these birds seem to have brown supercilia and a light colouration I don't see in shots of starlings.  A trick of the light? However there is certainly one added bonus as the one in the bottom right hand area has been identified as a rock pipit.  there's also a small warbler right at the front, partly obscured.

You have to admire the tenacity of some bird watchers - these two have been holding continuous watch over Newbiggin Bay ever since I first visited years ago.

Birdwatchers

Overall I was partly but not fully satisfied with the improved results from the camera.  However it was very windy, as you can hear in the video.

Just for the record I saw three more speckled wood at the Tennis Club on 14th October - maybe the last this year.

Thursday 11th June

Keeping ahead of more bad weather forecast, and very dreary it has proved, I was out on a couple of trips earlier this week.

On Monday, a rather arduous bike ride from Wark to Kielder Dam and back didn't produce many sightings but I did hear a cuckoo quite close by on the South side of the river just West of Bellingham.  It's the first I've heard since returning to the North East.  On the way back I also caught sight briefly of a red squireel running across a forestry track and again I think that was the first I have seen since relocating.

On Tuesday feeling stiff I decided on a very slow walk along the road through Prestwick Carr, partly persuaded by a mention of snipe though I didn't really expect to see any.  As soon as I parked a lot of willow warblers could be heard and I again thought I saw a lesser whitethroat but again could prove nothing as it wouldn't stay still for long.  All I can say was it was behaving the right way..

Another whitethroat showed up in a hedgerow soon after but I don't think the photo is good enough to tell what kind.

Whitethroat

However the most interesting feature on a day that was virtually windless was the number of birds that elected to land on the small number of bare trees along the moss.

This resulted in sightings of linnet, meadow pipit and - sure enough - snipe in similar poses.  I'd certainly not have expected to see the latter two at the top of a tree. In fact I don't think I've seen so many birds do this on the same day.  There were a couple of other examples where photos taken at distance against the light were too indistinct to make out so the birds couldn't be identified.

Linnet

Meadow Pipit

Snipe

Further up the path, the willow warblers were a bit more visible.

Willow Warbler

Once or twice on other trips I've noticed a bumblebee that was too big to be a carder bee and spent quite a lot of effort trying to take one on the way back. Typically it was hard to get a full body shot but I think it was probably an early bumblebee.

Early Bumblebee

I've seen them before but had entirely forgotten about early bumblebees. Put it down to my late age.

Slowly getting tired as I got nearer to the the car, I still couldn't resist chasing up another suspected lesser whitethroat skulking through the hawthorns. As it was constantly moving around I tried to video it.  The pictures were pretty useless but you could hear the consistent 'tec tec' call on the soiundtrack - which I think is decisive. I'm claiming.

Not a bad overall result for a rather hastily planned trip and perhaps shows the value of taking your time!

Tuesday 12th March

Hooded Crow

In the last few weeks I've taken a bit of a break from my fitness and nature-related activities for various reasons, notably to have a long weekend in the art galleries in Vienna.  On the last day there I was however pleased to spot a couple of hooded crows grazing in the Volksgarten and one got near enough for a snap on the mobile phone.

Here the odd red kite is still hovering around at low altitude and a grey squirrel hopped along the length of my garden fence one day.  I was in the garden myself during the unseasonably warm weather at the end of February but, unlike others did not see an early butterfly.

There was a slightly strange sight yesterday when I came through Medomsley in the car.  Two roe deer stood out on the horizon of a large field of cabbages, immediately causing me to wonder if deer eat cabbages. I suppose they probably do.

Yesterday it was back to normal with a trip to Shibdon Pond with the U3A group.  I got there early to find a large number of gulls and only a few other common species showing, but it just goes to show how useful it can be to be in a group.  Someone pointed out a couple of gadwall that were briefly visible and one hawk-eyed member spotted a group of snipe on an island near to the hide.

Snipe

 They were so well camouflaged, it took a few of us some while to spot them and it was hard work getting a view in the camera. A pair of shovelers and one of shelduck also showed up in due course to add to the mallards, coots and moorhens.

A walk to the Nature Reserve on the far side of the lake proved a little disappointing as we only saw a few teal, some tits and a bullfinch.  This was similar when I visited last autumn, so perhaps summer will be a better time to visit.

I did however see a very large bumblebee in flight (garden or white-tailed) and suspected it might be a queen. It's certainly the right time of year. Flowering early was this blackthorn although those in the know said that the unusually large flowers show that it is an introduced version that could interbreed with the native variety. Very sinister!

Non-native Blackthorn

Saturday 10th March

After a protracted move to Geordieland, I am now playing serious catch-up as in two months' behind.

Part of the moving preparations included the delivery of a unit of furniture to my daughter and her partner, which we engineered to include a visit to Leighton Moss in Morecambe Bay as our meeting point.

Wigeon, lapwing and cormorant

We had hoped for possible exotics in the way of bearded tit, bittern (already booming apparently) and marsh harrier but in the event the last was the only one to be seen briefly.

Instead there was a ready assortment of various other species.  The signs on the way to the lakes were already good when a robin was persuaded to take a bit of banana direct from my hand (first time that's happened) and a marsh tit showed on the feeders (my first in this country).

Then we saw, roughly in order and with fair regularity: little egret, shoveler, cormorant, wigeon, teal, lapwing, tufted duck, pintail, snipe and grey heron.

I was particularly pleased to get the following snaps, the best I have add of each species but it really wasn't too hard:  The patterned underbody of the teal was something I was unaware of.

Teal

Pintail

Little Egret