Aborted Seawatch

After yesterday's northerly winds I though I would try a seawatch this morning -early reports from coastal watchpoints looked favourable. I arrived just after sunrise and headed for my spot in the dunes.

It was a beautiful morning - too beautiful for seawatching. 

Stunning morning but no good for seawatching

The bright early sun was low in the eastern sky, already lighting up the sea and there was a slight haziness. All the birds, even those close-in were just silhouettes, it was hopeless, my notes would've read Skua sp, Shearwater sp, even Gull sp. I did manage to ID three Red-throated Divers on their silhouettes before packing in and heading for the bushes. 

I headed south, picking up a couple of Chiffs, but not much else. A few Meadow Pipits headed south including a flock of about 20, 77 Pink-footed Geese went south in two groups and 11 Skylark went North!. This glakey Pheasant nearly flew into me before crash landing into a Swedish Whitebeam tree.

Glake

There are so many Pheasant around at the moment - 34 is my top count this week. A Chiffchaff was chiff-chaffing in the tree at the farmhouse. In the plantation, I picked up on a calling Pied Flycatcher  - my first of the Autumn but not a year-tick after the very unseasonable bird in late June. 

By the entrance,  a couple of Blackcaps and a Whitethroat fed on Elderberries and Goldcrest - a true Autumn bird at Druridge - flitted around. 

Heading north back to the car, I found a second Pied Flycatcher in the small wood. 

Pied Flycatcher - one of two

Pied Flycatchers aren't even annual birds at Druridge, averaging about every third year, so to see two made up for the lack of a seawatch. Full list here

I did try a brief seawatch this evening, but the wind had switched SE and it was quiet. About 120 Kittiwake fed distantly offshore and a handful of Manx Shearwaters went north with a similar number of Red-throated Divers headed South. 

Full list here

Vizmig and the two bird theory

I've tried a bit of viz-migging this week, but probably missed the vizmig highlight of the year today - a huge southerly movement of swifts, with thousands of birds logged at east coast hot-spots including 28,0000 at Hummanby Gap. I hadn't anticipated it so didn't get down to the patch until lunchtime, by the time I did there were still lots of swift headed south but nothing like the numbers reported earlier.

After reports of crossbill movements, I positioned myself on the big dune at 5.30am on Wednesday morning. When I arrived on site, there were 11 siskins feeding on the alders before moving north. I estimated about another 100+ siskins, all moving south in small groups of 15-25 until 7.30am. Nothing like the 6500 Tom Tams had at Tynemouth and no crossbills - my target for the morning.

I tried for crossbills on another two mornings but no joy.The meadow pipits kept me entertained though and fly-through little egrets on two mornings were welcome sightings of scarce bird this year. The big dune is a good place to scan the budge fields and I picked up both wood and green sandpipers from there.

Meadow pipit song-flighting from the big dune

In the bay, the common scoter flock reached a peak of about 1400 birds midweek. On Friday, I abandoned viz-mig and had walk north and south. A family group of pied wags entertained me at the Dunbar burn and a new moth...

New moth - Pammene aurana (there were at least eight of them)

One of the pied wag youths

New hoverfly for the patch Cheilosia illustrata - one of the bumblebee mimics (iPhone photo)

As is typical, the weather deteriorated just in time for the weekend. I manged a wander between showers on Saturday morning and it was nice to catch up with Bob Biggs and ADMc. Waders from the Budge included  four, maybe five ruff including gingery, black and white/cream coloured birds, 19 black-tailed godwits (most or all Greenland race birds), two knot, two ringed plover and two dunlin. A female marsh harrier was my first since lockdown and an adult cuckoo shot through the dunes - northbound.

Today, Janet and I had a walk to the hides, mostly looking for hoverflies but we found the four spoonbills, that have commuted between Cresswell Pond and the Budge fields, feeding on the doughnut pool from the little hide.

Four spoonbills- an they were all awake!

mating common blue damselflies

This evening, news came through of a female pied flycatcher near the Budge screen. Pied Fly is a scarce bird in any year at Druridge, unheard of in June, so worth a look before the footy I thought.

Graham Sorrie reported north of the path to the screen-hide. The first bird I got my bins on was a spotted flycatcher.

Spotted Flycatcher

I knew Graham wouldn't have mistaken spotted fly for pied, but for two flycatchers of any species to be at Druridge in June would be mega rare, but I couldn't rule out the two-bird theory and I was right not to as shortly after that a female pied flycatcher appeared on the same edge. My first pied fly since 2014!

Pied flycatcher

I'm not sure what is going on here. Is this early returning birds or very late northerly migrants? Someone on Twitter sent me a link to a wind map and a report of high temperatures and forest fires in Arctic Siberia - which is worrying in itself but might explain these birds?

Risky strategy paid off

As reports came in of a Fea's Petrel being tracked up the north-east coast this afternoon, I got twitchy and had to make a tricky decision. Do I go to a good seawatching spot such as Newbiggin or Snab Point and give myself a better chance of connecting with a lifer, or do I stay loyal to the patch and hope I can see it there.

I decided to go to Druridge. To be honest, the decision was easily made but I was aware that it was a risk. When I set off the bird had only just gone past Seaham, so I had plenty of time.

Not long after I was set up I had an unexpected bonus, an adult Sabine's gull was flying around offshore, about half-way to the pot flags, I watched if for a good three minutes as it zigzagged in a generally southerly direction, before it flew south-east into the gloom. I tipped off Neil and Tom and Snab. 

A few minutes later, what I presume was the same bird, an adults Sabs, flew north, again not very far out at all. A fantastic start and only my second ever patch Sabine's gull, the first was back in 2009.

I was joined on the dune by Alan Hall, as news came through of the Fea's northerly passage. A risky strategy for Alan too. So news in came in from Newbiggin and shortly after from Tom and Janet at Snab. What seemed like an age passed, and then two manx shearwaters came through, as I watched them, I saw another bird bank and tower quite high with a different jizz all together. It looked quite a bit bigger, the dark, almost black wings, looked really obvious when it banked and turned - it did this twice before dropping down. I was struggling to get Alan onto it though, there were too many black and double-black flags (we should have been more organised with hindsight and made sure we were on the same flags).

I lost it behind a wave and couldn't re-find it after re-positioning my scope.

I was gutted for Alan, but delighted to have seen it myself. These 'tracked' seabirds certainly get the adrenaline going.

It was followed by a sooty shearwater, the first of five that I saw. I continued to seawatch until after six o'clock but it had really tailed off after five.

Red-throated diver 4S, 3N

Sabine's Gull one adult southeast then north

Pale-bellied brent 4N

Manx Shearwater 8N

Fea's Petrel (1620ish) N

Sooty Shearwater 5N

Bonxie 1N

Arctic Skua 1N

Velvet Scoter 1 drake with flock, 1S with smaller flock

Dark-bellied Brent 5N

GC Grebe 1N

harbour porpoise 2

So Fea's takes the patch list to 236

I took Friday off work as it looked like the easterly winds were going to end. I had planned to ring from first thing, but the heavy, almost drizzle-like, fog persisted until mid-morning. I tramped the bushes, but it felt very quiet, almost as if there had been overnight clear-out. Pied flycatcher was all of note. 

I put some nets up by 11am, but only caught 12 birds. Hardly worth the effort.

158 grey wagtail

159 Sabine's Gull

160 FEA'S PETREL

161 sooty shearwater

PWC Score 247

More birding, more ringing

The wind is still in the east so I took another Friday off work and put some nets up at Druridge. It was much quieter than last week but we caught 24 birds so it was worth while. 

It was definitely a day for goldcrests, robins and chiffchaffs with a few wrens for good-measure. We caught this pied flycatcher on the last net-round as we were packing up.

Pied flycatcher

Away from the ringing, meadow pipits and skylarks could be heard going over all morning and there was a steady passage of south-bound swallows. A great-spotted woodpecker was headed the other way, towards East Chevington.

I gave the bushes a good thrashing this morning. There were still plenty of chiffchaffs, goldcrests and the odd willow warbler, whitethroat and robin. Meadow pipits and skylarks were still going over, but not as many as yesterday.

Blue tit on one of the numerous feeders that have appeared at Druridge. You can see this is a first-year bird, there is still some juvenile feathers on the head.

Despite wall-to wall easterlies (and for the foreseeable future), the conditions aren't right to drop migrants in, if they are coming over the north sea, they must be going straight inland. Monday night/Tuesday morning could bring an interesting band of rain. A single ruff was on the Budge fields and a male sparrowhawk was about.

Northumberland County Council (Mike Carr) have been in this week and resurfaced the path to the Oddie Hide (a public right of way). They've done a great job, constructing a path that should be accessible to all, drain freely and last a few years and visiting birders will be able to find the hides now.

The new path

Janet turned up on a white horse.

Janet, on a white horse.

155 Pied flycatcher

PWC Score 219

Ringing and stuff

I had a quick pre-work visit to Druridge yesterday morning and spent an hour in the plantation. Highlight was a pied flycatcher, quite late I though, so I gave it a good grilling but it was nothing rare than a pied fly.

There were a three or four chiffchaffs, one very grey bird called like a Sibe, the others were bog standard chiffs. Three swallows flew south, a few goldcrests flitted about and handful of redwings were present.

I took this afternoon off. Today looked like the only day of the week that would be suitable for ringing. I had a good session, catching 24 new birds. A chiffchaff was the only warbler in the nets, also caught eight long-tailed tits (another 12 flew south), three goldcrests and assorted tits, fiches and wrens.

A great-spotted woodpecker passed through the bushes.

Once I had packed the ringing site up, I had a look offshore were the highlight was a drake velvet scoter leading the pack north as it was being followed by 21 common scoters.

It as a fab sunset tonight, took this with my knackered old phone on its last day before I join the 'iphone generation'

165 pied flycatcher (first since 2010)

Goldfest

Another long day at Druridge and I am now totally zonked!

We were ringing from 6.45am until 5.30pm, we caught 116 birds including 4 retraps  - not bad at all!

We caught a gint of goldcrests and a hod of robins too, we caught nothing unusual or even scarce and we were so busy ringing I didn't even have time for any birding between net-rounds. Best birds of the day were pied flycatcher, garden warbler, meadow pipit and two blackcaps.

nice bright male siskin

meadow pipit

pied flycatcher

We failed to catch yesterdays barred warbler or 'dark phyllosc'

Between net rounds, a skein of c800 pink-foooted geese flew south at dawn and for the first three hours there was a steady stream, of skylarks moving through, maybe 30-40 per hour. A nice male brambling was on the short grass near the dunes and a kestrel, mobbed by ten pipits and wagtails was hunting in the dunes.

Ringing Totals:

robin 28 + 2 retraps
blackbird 3 + 1 retrap
goldcrest 43
blue tit 9
meadow pipit 1
siskin 9
blackcap 2
chiffchaff 3
long-tailed tit 5
garden warbler 1
song thrush 3
goldfinch 1
pied flycatcher 1
wren 3 + retrap

A year to the day, Tom Cadwallender, Neil Anderson and myself caught this little beauty at Druridge...

Radde's warbler

Not quite as good as it could have been

When the rain and very strong SE winds that lashed the Northumberland Coast overnight suddenly abated at lunch time and the sun came out, an impromptu half-day flexi-leave was taken.

With hope in my heart that the weather would have dropped a rare or two into Druridge, I set about working through the bushes at 12.55. It was soon obvious that the weather had indeed dropped some birds in, four redstarts, three blackcaps and a graden warbler were in the plantation - canny start!

In the willows by the entrance there were more blackcaps, another redstart and some willowchiffs. On the fence along the dunes there were four whinchats and three wheatears. After checking the area by the Budge screen, I steadily worked the sunny, sheltered edge and found a handful of both spotted and flycatchers.

willow warbler

willow warbler

spotted flycatcher

spotted flycatcher

The mix of species was very similar to the haul that came from the weather that caused the Morpeth floods two years ago, we had wryneck, barred warbler and greenish warbler at Druridge during that week. See this post for a memory jogger from that time.

At the small reedbed on the big pool there were both reed and sedge warblers, as I walked away from the reeds, I heard the birds in it alarm calling, I caught sight of small falcon disappearing over the trees, not enough to nail it but it looked good for a hobby, albeit a late one!

Other than the un-nailed falcon there were no rares or even scarcities today, but it certainly had potential and I was pleased that I took the time off work. It's raining again as I type this and the wind is still in the SE. Guess I'll be going to Druridge before work tomorrow!

Totals of key migrants 12:55 - 18:55

redstart 6
dunnock 8
blackcap 10
garden warbler 5
wheatear 4
whinchat 7
chiffchaff 2
willow warbler 11
pied flycatcher 6
whitethroat 1
spotted flycatcher 5
sedge warbler 2
reed warbler 2

142 redstart
143 spotted flycatcher
144 pied flycatcher