Holy Island early migrants

Holy Island early migrants

Looking at the weather charts we noticed a high over Scandinavia and a low over Britain with rain and northeasterlies yesterday, this promised maybe a few good birds for today, so early on we headed for Holy Island. Our first port of call was the Snook and after 10 minutes we were checking out the garden at Snook House, Keith caught a glimpse of an interesting warbler, which eventually came out into the open and proved to be an Icterine Warbler, our first in Northumberland since 2008, this was a great start and boded well for the rest of the day. Our next stop was at the Half Moon slack, here we carefully walked up either side of the bushes and eventually found our second rarity of the day in the form of a juvenile Barred Warbler, it flew into a bush and joined another bird which also turned out to be a Barred Warbler, we left them in peace and continued on only to come across a third bird. We next headed for the Village and gravitated towards The Straight Lonnen, very little was seen except a female Marsh Harrier cruising about over the nearby fields, on reaching the Willows at the far end we noticed several birds moving about, one was a Pied Flycatcher along with Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff, the final bird of the day was, yes you've guessed it a Barred Warbler, our 4th of the day, bring on the autumn!.      

Migrant Wader numbers increasing...

Today:  Black-tailed Godwits - 36 at Newton Scrape, 15 at Monks House Pool; Ruff - 4 at Newton Scrape, 1 Monks Hse Pool; 4 Snipe at each above site, 30 Dunlin at each site, 30 Redshank at each site , 20 Lapwing at Monks House Pool, 1 Greenshank at Newton Scrape.
Yellow Wagtail: 1 at Newton Scrape, 2 at Monks House Pool.                                                               A Peregrine pair at Budle Bay (this pair credited to Winnie Banks).

Birdy places to go !

Although slightly out of NNBC's area, S.E. Northumberland coastal reserves have plenty to offer - today:
Cresswell Pond produced 12 species of wader: Little Stint, Reeve, Common Sandpiper, Avocet, Black-tailed Godwit, Snipe, Curlew, Whimbrel, Oystercatcher, Redshank, Dunlin &Lapwing accompanied by 2 Little Egrets, Common Tern, Shelduck, Mallard, Teal, Canada & Greylag Geese, Coot & Moorhen. Also a family of Reed Warblers near the hide, whilst a Barn Owl flew over (19.00hrs) as I departed. (On Tuesday, 3 days ago, I saw an Otter from this hide but no sign today!).
Druridge: Whitethroat feeding at close range and Reed Buntings.
Chevington: Great Crested and Little Grebe, Heron, Tufted Duck, Swifts & more.
Worth a visit!

Nocturnal

Nocturnal

A late evening visit to Beanley Moor proved very productive. As I sat taking in the sounds of Owls hooting and Grey Herons croaking as they flew over, like something out of Jurassic Park, I slowly began to hear other things. 3 Cuckoos were calling from different places at the same time- the calls were mainly the familiar "cuckoo" but also a bubbling trill which would indicate a female. This went on for sometime before silence reigned once more, then as a final flourish just as I was about to leave came the unmistakable churring call of a Nightjar. All was silence apart from this one weird yet wonderful sound. 

Black Winged Pratincole

We were just starting a walk around Branton Ponds on Friday when I received a phone call from a friend to say a Black Winged Pratincole had been discovered at Bothal Pond in Southeast Northumberland, a jog back to the house for optics and camera saw us on our way and on site within 45 minutes. There was already a large crowd assembled of local birders and we soon picked up the bird at the far side of the pond preening, ok views but not brilliant, this was all about to change as it took off and started hawking for insects with a group of Swifts, this elegant wader flew around almost Tern-like and at one stage appeared to call again very like a tern, views were had from as close as 40 yards and enjoyed by all, it was still there today and well worth the trip.

Buston Links

It is weeks since I walked from Kilacrankie north along Buston Links and thought that today's fine weather was an opportunity to put that right. No more waders on Birling Carr but Herring gulls, Greater black backs, Oystercatchers and Eiders on the rocks. Walking through the caravan site Whitethroat, Sedge warbler and Linnets were calling. Walking up the slope to the top of the dunes I stopped to look over the field with new scrapes on Northfield farm and was surprised to see a Short-eared owl quartering the field. With terns calling time to look out to sea. There were twelve Sandwich terns fishing alongside twenty two Gannets - must be a good supply of sand eels. Perched in the scrub was a stonechat.
The dunes were ablaze with colour : cowslips, early purple orchids, crosswort, speedwells, bloody cranesbill, bluebells both English and Spanish, campion, violets, milkwort, mouse-ear hawkweed.
No decent bird photos but some colourful flowers.

Black-throated Divers

Our annual pilgrimage to the Long Nanny Tern Colony walking from Low Newton took us round Football Hole, where we were excited to see a pair of Black-throated Divers in full breeding plumage close to shore. Never on the surface for more than ten-to-fifteen seconds at a time, they crossed the little bay back and forth several times as we watched them for the next ten minutes. Fabulous! As always, we enjoyed the frenetic activity of  the 2500 Arctic Terns and 20 pairs of Little Terns at Long Nanny, and a Barn Owl hunting in broad daylight was an unexpected bonus on our return across the dunes.