A Matter of Luck

So here we are dhortly before the solstice and there are still one or two flowers just about in bloom in the garden.

Snapdragon...

... or antirrinhum?

Around the corner a couple of other plants are growing new leaves as if it was already Spring in spite of a sudden frost early this morning.

Rumours of a growing colony of snow buntings on The Links at Whitley Bay proved to much for me to resist and today I headed for the suspect area, barely 300 yards from the student flat I was in at 2 Davison Avenue 50 years ago.  As many as 20 had been showing up consistently for over a week, presumably feeding on grass seed.

I moved down from Briardene Car Park in observation mode but at first it looked like oystercatcher and redshanks were the ones harvesting the seeds.

Oystercatchers

Redshanks

In the end it was an easy job to find the snow buntings, as there was a couple of people I know who were already watching them.

Snow Buntings en groupe

Snow Bunting close-up

Overall we counted around 15.

Of course this wasn't really great luck.  Now settled it is quite likely they will stay in the area until early

Spring, as happened a few years back when some stayed over at St Mary's Island.  But having missed them twice at Seaton Sluice a couple of months back, it felt like a success.

The whole process can't have taken more than about 30 minutes so I decided to go for broke and check out reports of a lone black redstart down the road at Cullercoats.

This was a bit more of a 'needle in a haystack' task as I didn't have a precise idea of their location. I decided to investigate the bay south of the Lifeboat Station, hoping that it wouldn't be put off by the local restrictions:

You have been warned!

This tactic however proved fruitless and I was starting to feel cold and in need of coffee when, coming off a breakwater and stopping to watch a pied wagtail, I noticed another plausible area to the North of the prohibited worms and thought I made out the shape of a bloke clambering over the rocks with a camera.

A quick view through the telephoto lens confirmed this to be correct - so obviously I had to take a walk along.  The bloke had set up his camera to focus on a nearby rock, obviously hoping the bird would come and pose.  It didn't but I thought I momentarily saw a black redstart moving to his right. Shortly afterwards, another chap turned up and said "Have you seen it?" then confirmed this was the right place.

Ultimately the guy with the camera pointed it out on a small rock, pleasing the non-bird watchers who had turned up to ask what we were looking at.  I think it was a female, like the one I saw at Tynemouth in 2020.

Black Redstart

Obviously this was the result of sheer luck of the kind I had a run of a while back but seems to have deserted me lately.  Hopefully it has changed.  It also goes to prove the maxim I share with one of the lady spectators today - don't look for the bird, look for men (and sometimes women) with huge cameras!

Saturday 16th February

Hot on the heels of the water rail success on Monday, I decided to try my luck with the snow buntings at St Mary's Island again. As driving there by any route is a nuisance and the weather was improving, I decided to cycle there from the Quayside, overruling my better judgment that hi-vis jacket and samll binoculars might not be advisable.  I also found no room in my bag for a bird guide.

In fact it couldn't have worked out much better.  En route along cycle track 72, I saw about eight magpies in the same tree close to the Tyne Tunnel, and roughly the same number again round about - more than ever before in the same view.

I rode right through to St Mary's without stopping and immediately heard an invisible skylark over the adjacent fields.  Following the call of nature on the edge of the nature reserve, I got a good view of a curlew in the same field, as well as canada geese, mallard and teal in the reserve itself.  Then I cycled very slowly towards the lighthouse with camera and binoculars at the ready.

When looking for an uncommon bird, the best plan seems to be to not look for the bird but to watch out for a twitcher with a huge camera lens.  It worked again today as soon as I reached the second car park.  There was the twitcher and the three snow buntings were running around on the grassy slope eating seeds - one male and two females.

Snow Buntings

Snow buntings have the reputation of not being shy of humans and this little group was relatively unphased by most repeated disturbances, including amusingly that from the middle-aged bikers in the car park less than ten yards away, revving their throttles.

Occasionally the birds retired to the foreshore or the railings on the promenade but always came back while I sat for around half an hour having my lunch.

It was a flat, high tide and there wasn't much else about apart from a few cormorants.  I took a couple more looks into the reserve but only saw a group of redshanks on the pool if you discount these Dartmoor ponies that are employed to keep the vegetation down.

Dartmoor Ponies at work

There were stories of a black redstart at Tynemouth as well as a ring-necked parakeet in Newcastle but hey, I'd seen both of those in my travels to Europe.  So I decided to head back in a vain attempt to beat the rush hour.