End of Year Birding

A steady period of birding over the past week-and-a-half interrupted frequently by work and family commitments.  The highlight was being able to eventually squeeze in a twitch for the Patrington Haven juvenile IVORY GULL on 20 December.  Alas I didn't arrive quite early enough to experience it's early-morning fishy-feed at no-yards and had to be happy with two hours of distant views as it sat out on the estuary rocks doing nothing much but digesting.  However, I was still chuffed to bits at seeing this stunningly scruffy boy, especially as it was a lifer to boot.  Two digiscoped shots of the bird, taken in a very strong wind below.

Ivory Gull (juvenile). Patrington Haven (East Yorks). 20 December 2013.

Ivory Gull (juvenile). Patrington Haven (East Yorks). 20 December 2013.

Apart from the Ivory I've managed a bit of local birding, two days on Teeside and a few visits to my old patch of Barrowford Reservoir, whilst staying with my folks over Christmas.  Not a lot to get too excited about on these trips but for an immature Glaucous Gull (either a 2nd or 3rd winter), 2 Snow Bunting, Twite, 2 Red Kite and several argentatus Herring Gulls.



Parrot Crossbills at Budby Common (Notts) - 13 December 2013

Whilst working down in Leicestershire last week I got the opportunity to shoot-up to Budby Common, in Nottinghamshire, to have a look at the Parrot Crossbills.  For once luck was on my side: no sooner had I got to the area where the crossbills had been frequenting, when there they were.  Over the next 3/4 hour the flock of 14 crossbills showed very well to all present, perched in two separate deciduous trees and dropping down to drink at several puddles.  Despite the insistence of the usual loud-mouthed, self-proclaimed expert (idiot), that several of the flock were "obviously Common Crossbills", that "you can't separate these birds from 'Scotbill'" and "it just makes a mockery of it all really", I thought that all 14 birds in the flock looked good for Parrot Crossbill.

 

I see a lot of Common Crossbills when out birding locally, and all 14 of the Budby birds were obviously different to Common Crossbill: larger headed with a bull-necked structure; big, deep bills; obviously deeper and bulging lower mandibles; sharply decurved mandibles towards the tip; and deeper and less metallic calls.  As for the Scottish Crossbill issue.  I'll worry about separating Common, Scottish and Parrot Crossbills when I'm in Speyside, but not when I'm in Nottinghamshire!

 

I even managed to (fuzzy) digiscope some of the birds, but alas I couldn't get my remembird to work properly, and thus failed to record any of them.

 

Parrot Crossbill (male). Budby Common (Notts). 13 December 2013.

Parrot Crossbill (male). Budby Common (Notts). 13 December 2013.

 

Recent Birding - Sunderland, the Tees and local.

When I started this blog just under a month ago (after many, many months of deliberation) I was going to be dynamic.  I was going to post frequently.  I was going to provide a detailed insight into what makes me tick as a birder.  I was going to finally solve some of the most difficult and compelling I.D. conundrums faced by today's modern birder.  But no, instead I've just managed three short posts in the space of a month.  Looks like a trend has been set already, and unfortunately this post is going to follow form, with just a brief run down of my birding highlights from the last three weeks.  I've not got much to report either, as it's all been rather steady.



Black-headed Gull (adult). Sunderland (Durham). 28-November-2013.





I've been working in Sunderland, Washington and around the Tees recently, which has enabled me to get a fair bit of both 'on-the-job' and 'extra-curricular' birding done.  Despite a lot of searching through flocks of gulls, waders and duck, over several days, highlights have quite literally been 3 Purple Sand, a Black-throated Diver and a Snow Bunting.  To say I felt a little frustrated and cheated after the effort was an understatement.



Turnstone. Sunderland (Durham). 28-November-2013.



Local birding, in my part of inland Northumberland, has been a bit more productive over the past few weeks - although, as with all things, it's relative.  By far the best local bird was a brief Waxwing in Wark, as I was taking the kids to school, on 26 November.  No bins or camera on me, and I couldn't refind it on my return from the school-run, but still nice to see nonetheless.  The two adult Greenland White-fronted Geese remained at Grindon Lough until 27 November, but I haven't seen them since.  There appear to be two Greenland Whitefronts on the coast at Woodhorn now, so I'm guessing that my birds have been kidnapped by the Northumberland coastal birders again.  It's happened before, and it'll happen again - some people just have no manners!  The only other good birds at Grindon have been regular Peregrines.  Elsewhere, I've stumbled across a 1st-winter Scaup at Sweethope Lough on 2 December and a 1st-winter Med Gull in the roost at Colt Crag Reservoir on 6 December.  There's also been quite a few crossbills and redpolls pinging around the Sweethope and Colt Crag area, but they've all just been very frustrating flyovers so far!

I promise to try harder this coming week...





Lesser Grey Shrike - Newton-by-the-Sea (Northumberland)

With news eventually out, that a 'grey shrike' that had been at Newton for three days had at last been correctly identified as a Lesser Grey Shrike, my first thought on Friday afternoon (apart from how on earth had someone managed to mis-id a Lesser Grey Shrike as a Great Grey Shrike, and then keep it quiet for three days) was that I really needed to see this bird, having dipped three previously in the UK, including two in Northumberland.  However, with a busy family weekend ahead, I knew that the only way to get there would be to take two little helpers with me on the twitch.

 

Saturday morning saw myself, and the kids, arrive at the car park at Newton Links after a (thankfully) uneventful drive across the county.  As soon as I was out of the car the Lesser Grey was immediately obvious, fly-catching from various bushes and fence posts along the edge of the car park, much to the appreciation of the 20+ birders gathered in the car park.  With the kids kitted out in wellies and coats we slipped into the dunes (safer than a car park with four and one year olds) where I enjoyed fantastic views of the shrike for a while before being dragged off the beach to test our wellies in the surf.

Lesser Grey Shrike (1st-winter). Newton Links (Northumberland). 16-November-2013.

 

Lesser Grey Shrike (1st-winter) with insect prey. Newton Links (Northumberland). 16-November-2013.

I didn't really have time to see many other birds whilst at Newton (shrikes, kids and all that), but there were a couple of Goldcrest calling from the Links House garden and six Sanderling on the beach.  Thanks to Gary for being the first birder to see the shrike who could actually identify it, and for then getting the news out promptly so that everyone else could enjoy this stunning bird as well.

 

Wark, North Tyne (Northumberland)

Moving on to much more mundane birding, it's been fairly quiet in the village for the past week or so.  The on going work on the bridge doesn't help, and has had a detrimental impact on the variety and numbers of birds on the river.  However, recent highlights have included Kingfisher, Tawny Owl and 2 Buzzards, good numbers of winter thrushes, plus Tree Sparrows, Siskins and Lesser Redpolls.

Patching It

It's been all about my patch, Grindon Lough, during the first half of November as I haven't been able to get further afield.  We are now well and truly settled into winter at Grindon with hundreds of Wigeon, Teal and Lapwing at the lough, plus the usual flock of Canada Geese.  The two adult Greenland White-fronted Geese that returned to the lough on 24 October are still present, as is an adult Whooper Swan that first appeared on 3 November.  Highlight of the past two weeks was a Kingfisher on 8 November, my first here in 12 years and thus a 'full-fat' patch tick!  That's as exciting as it gets though, with the best of the rest being a couple of Dunlin, the odd Pink-foot and 70 Golden Plover.  It's only a matter of time before I find a Yank Wigeon or GW Teal though...

 

 

Hello Bird World!

Well, every other birder that I know seems to have their own blog so I thought it was about time I got around to having one too.  I don’t like being left out!

Presumably anyone reading this (optimistic I know) has navigated here accidentally.  However, if you do continue to read this then be warned – you will not read anything interesting, or exciting on here.  No full frame pics of migrants, no exciting tales of finding rares on far flung islands, no warts and all accounts of travelling across the country for a mega…just the occasional brief summary of the small amount of time that I’ve managed to squeeze a bit of birding in between work and kids, occasionally illustrated with the odd fuzzy record shot.

So who am I?  I’m a birder living and working in Northumberland but, as I often work all over the country, often find myself birding away from home.  I’m obsessed with finding my own rares, although I’m not very good at it.  I’m also prone to the odd twitch if about a thousand variables align themselves correctly all at the same time.  My local patch for the last 12 years has been Grindon Lough, a small, shallow natural lake on Hadrian’s Wall, which I try and get to several times a week.  It’s nothing special but does reward me with the occasional good bird.  At least it’s a lot better than the concrete basin that I previously patched for over ten years in inland Lancashire!