Bank Holiday Weekend.

Above - This Bank ( Holiday ?) Vole was eating a pear on our drive on Saturday....

Didnt get far, spent some time doing the garden and wandering locally with Bunty.

Some highlights -

Friday evening -

Along the coast path had 2 Whimbrel, 2 Wheatear, 21 Eider. In the village 2 Sand Martins and 7 House Martins were with the local Swallows. Moth trapping was slow due to the cool blustery weather with only 25 caught of 7 species. Nothing new in there.

Saturday -

Along the coast path 9am. 2 Stoats were showing well dancing around in the middle of the road. Fearing another casualty, I strode on towards them where they hopped into cover and safety. Hirundines were moving south in some numbers and in the 20 minutes out I saw upwards of 200 in small groups. In with them later this afternoon were 3 Swifts, pity they werent in September....




On the shore were 1 Whimbrel and 1 Common Sand while 1 Golden Plover flew S.

Sunday -

Butterflies along the coast path were down on last weekend but there were still 39 Painted Lady, 10 Wall, 2 Small Tortoiseshell, 4 Peacock and a Small Copper.
A walk in the Village Wood found my first 2 Spotted Flycatchers here this year.



Above - Spotted Flycatcher, one of two.

Sunday -

Out with JWR today and was pleased to pop down to Amble to meet up with Steve from 'Kingsdowner' blog. It was nice to put a face to the name, so we gave him a morning touring some of the North Northumberland coast from Amble to Craster.

Steve's night spent in Amble 'The Friendliest Port', yes, thats the tagline, was less than its name suggested when Bank Holiday revellers had a 'smashing' time in the pub opposite the guest house!



Above - 'Kingsdowner' Steve investigating the ancient Red Loopoe of Boulmer...

Although the morning was a quiet one for birding our first stop at Foxton Bends had a nice Spotted Redshank on a flash in the field and 5 Greenshank and 1 Common Sand on the river. 4 Goosanders gave a nice flyby in the morning sun.

At Boulmer, 1 Whimbrel, 1 dark phase Arctic Skua and 3 Wheatears were the best on offer and a luckless search for Red Squirrel in our Village Wood gave us only 3 Speckled Woods in compensation ( possibly rarer than Red Squirrels up here).

A new moth in the trap last night - Brown Spot Pinion..



Above - Dotted Clay ( Arrrggghhh, no its not. Its a Brown spot Pinion. Thanks to Skev and Mike Hodgson for educating me on it. Its good that some one does, other wise this blog would be more stringy than a tramps vest! Thanks lads:)

And thats about it but as a write this there is a torrential deluge outside, a fine way to end the weekend...

The long range weather forecast for next weekend look ok for some seawatching on Friday - ish with a low moving over north Scotland giving us some long awaited northerlies...fingers crossed.