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...