Larks Not On Shore

Not too much to report from the garden.  I blame fairly or otherwise the continuing construction of a new housing estate in the middle of the village.  However I did manage to get a brief video of the long-tailed tits mobbing the suet dumplings that I've been trying to capture for some while:

Long-tailed tits

Not a bad roll call though I have had as many as seven or eight on previous occasions.  Unfortunately I couldn't get the same suet dumplings on my last trip to the supermarket, and the attempted replacements has been viewed with puzzlement by tits and corbids alike.

In fact this blue tit preferred instead to rob a few seeds from the mahonia bush.

Blue Tit

After some humming and hawing I decided after a typically abortive trip to Chopwell Woods to visit Beacon Point at Newbiggin again, where conditions yesterday were somewhat misty and rather rough.

Rough conditions

Thanks to another birder, I did this time managed to catch up with a pair of shore larks.  These however were found several hundred yards away feeding next to one of the greens on the golf course and nowhere near the shore where they were supposed to be.

Shore larks seem to be fairly confident birds and at times I had the feeling that, even at 250 metres range, this one was giving me the eye.

Shore Lark

There were again a good number of twite on the path next to the golf course, though once again I didn't make a great job of getting them in focus.

Twite

I think i might need to find out more about focal lengths.

The flock was perhaps slightly smaller than last time but feeding in exactly the same place on the path, where I gather people have been putting bird seed down.  I do hope this isn't to be regarded as cheating...

I didn't manage to catch up with the snow buntings that have visited occasionally but another bonus sighting, this time as considerable distance, was a couple of ringed plover down on the rocks.

Ringed Plover

Immediately to the left of them was this rather scruffy item, which puzzled me a good deal.

Scruffy Item

It spent most of its time trying to preen itself.  On reflection I suppose it's perhaps a juvenile oyster catcher without as yet the red beak.

Beginning afresh at Newbiggin

One consistent star performer on the stage of my garden bird table is the coal tit.  He/she, since there appears to be no difference, loves to harvest the numerous black sunflower seeds, always exiting backstage into the trees to consume them.

Recently, one bird made at least a dozen successive visits and you can only wonder if it isn't rather energy-sapping to perform in this energetic fashion.  Here's a brief sample:

Coal Tit feeding

Last week I at last achieved an objective when I visited Newbiggin and managed to catch up with some twites towards Beacon Point.

Twite

In fact there was a massive flock of about 50 to 100 birds visiting the seaside as they often do at this time of year.  Apparently there were a few shore larks around too but a jackdaw came down and flushed them shortly before I arrived.  There have been records of snow buntings at Newbiggin, but I think that was a little further down the coast.

Also in evidence on the day were a couple of meadow pipis and, as so often on the coast in Northumberland, stonechats:

Meadow Pipit

Stonechat

Down on the beach, there were a large number of birds dozing by the rock pools near the shoreline.  I took them to be golden plover.  However I was a bit stiff and and didn't fancy going down from the path and took photos at considerable distance.  On comparing them with images in my bird book I thought they looked more like dunlin or knot.  But it seems that golden plover they are.

Golden Plover

Facebook does have some uses!

Monday 7th November

Took advantage of a sunny afternoon to walk along the merse from Caerlaverock Nature Reserve to the edge of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust site before gloomier waether sets in this week.

You wouldn't think there had already been a couple of frosts from the number of insects on the wing, notably a number of whitefly around the car park and path and even a brown dragonfly.

White Mustard?

On the way to the merse I caught site of a bright male bullfinch and shortly after a fleeing jay. Otherwise there wasn't much to be seen on the way there but there was a lot of gorse around and also this stuff.  The nearest suggestion I can get from my Book of Flowers is white mustard.

In the hedgerow bordering the Wetland Trust, I was amused to identify another goldcrest, making it two in two visits. Maybe they are managing a comeback. I'm sure they were very badly hit by the extreme winters of five years ago.

On the way back there was a single buzzard moping in a tree, a quick glimpse of a couple of lapwing sailing over the distant fields, and this little brown item (pictured below).  I'm still waiting for suggestions about it's identity but the yellow beak and lack of white tail outline suggests it might just be a twite.

Twite??

Sunday 18th May

Walk around Craigadam Woodland to see what was to be seen.  Not too much apart from several orange tip and butterflies and various whites, a group of which were being disturbed by a large red-tailed bumble bee.

On the way back down one trail, noticed that a couple of little brown birds were picking up grit from the road.  One was a chaffinch but the other wasn't, but only got side and rear views in binoculars so couldn't really identify.  Could see mottled flanks, some black around the head and possibly some red on the crown.  Obvious suspects would be linnet and redpoll, though I thought it looked a bit more like a twite - but it's completely the wrong time of year.

Quick view of red kite on way back to the car.

Also recent sighting of wall butterfly on the way to shops.

Tuesday 31st January

Mr Henderson gave me a tip as well, when I mentioned that I was targetting twites but thought they were only in the far West of the region.  The result was today's double visit to the Carse Pow estuary at Carsethorn and Southerness Golf Course.

I may have seen them at Carsethorn when a flock of birds went up from a gorse bush with some rather jittery toing and froing but couldn't get close enough to see them with the binoculars as they settled, camouflaged as they were against the brown of the field edge.  The only option was to go closer and most of the flock scattered leaving only two birds on the fence, one of which was unidentifiable and the other a chaffinch.

I patrolled around a bit but in 2 Celsius with a biting Easterly coming in off the estuary, I wasn't for hanging about and went back along the shore, picking up incidental sightings of oystercatcher, shelduck, redshank and dunlin.

A quick circular walk in the surrounding lanes was warmer and produced several hundred barnacle geese, a dozen golden plover (long time, no see) and lone crested duck and pochard on the trout farm - but no twite.

I had no precise area of Southerness Golf Course to target and decided to walk round it clockwise, starting next to the dunes.  There was very little about apart from more waders and for a long time the only birdies I saw were on the 16th green.

Golf courses are bigger than you imagine but even after a half way rest all I could manage was a couple of meadow pipits and a flock of chaffinches next to a farmhouse by the road.

About to give up, I started to follow the track back toward the clubhouse.  After a while I noticed a side track to a farm field in the centre of the golf course, which seemed to have been ploughed up for the cattle.  There were a few rooks around.

Passing along the edge of the field I saw a large flock of small birds go up in the far corner in a similar manner to those at Carsethorn in the morning.

This time I managed to sneak up to the area where they were feeding on the ground without disturbing them unduly and half hid behind a gorse bush, so that they strayed close enough to identify.  There was no mistaking them - buff necks, yellow beaks and long tails - and so it was easy to distinguish them from the few chaffinches mixed in with the flock.  I even attempted a photo which turned into a 'spot the twite' competition.

Spot the Twite (hard)

So another big landmark within a week!  In the past I thought I might have seen the odd twite on occasion but I would now say they were almost certainly linnets.  The only exception was a posse of ground feeding birds I once pursued at Balcary Bay but couldn't identify.  But that was in the summer.