Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Star Wars Day today...

'May the 4th be with you....'

It seems like the cold has addled my brain. This is a combined Bank Holiday Post for the weekend. It'll still just take a paragraph or two because I havent seen very much....

Cherry Blossom out in masses at the village entrance, pity I didnt take it when the sky was blue?

 
The northerly wind settled all weekend with some bright sunshine yesterday.

On Sunday, my seawatch had 5 Common Scoter S and 1 Red throated Diver N along with 5 Sandwich Terns. Along the road to Alnmouth where we had 3 Swifts ( I refuse to call them Common Swifts. You'll hear me when they are a different swift species believe me), a few Sedge Warblers along with Blackcaps, Willow Warblers and Chiffchaffs.

On Sunday pm I walked west through the Hall woods and found a whole pond I had never seen before! It held 20+ Tufted Ducks, 20+ Greylags complete with two broods of 5 and 6 and another adult incubating. At least 3 Herring Gull nests, and Oystercatcher and a dozen House Martins  prospecting potential cliff nest sites. A single singing Lesser Whitethroat was my first of the year. Worthy of another visit I think.



The mystery quarry pond...

A male Orange Tip was in the garden.

Early on Monday Bunty wanted out at 5am. This was just in time to see a Tawny Owl still out hunting and sitting up looking at me to the sound of a ringing dawn chorus.

Last night moth trapping had only 10 of 4 common species.

Lets hope that wind swings back south soon...

7 comments:

Warren Baker said...

Bloody wind is northerly all week :-( Well done on the L. whitethroat.

Kingsdowner said...

The weekend must have been baad for you to come up with the 'orrible pun!
Good to know that you've still got things to find on 'your estate'.

Stewart said...

Cheers Warren.

Steve It takes something for me to remember crap jokes like that. Yes I still 'ride the boundaries' ;)

The pond might get me something like a Greenshank in the autumn?

Ipin said...

May the 4th be with you.......less said...

Looks like Northerly til at least Sunday and blimmin cold with it!

Chris Paice (Cumbria) said...

Last visited your area last week. We saw two male yellow wagtails flying north over the coastal boulders near Dunstanburgh on April 26th - also dozens of wheatears between there and Craster.
We were really taken by watching the kittiwakes gathering beakfuls of vegetation from around one of the flood-ponds and carting it back to their ledges. Never seen that before!

abbey meadows said...

Worth checking that area out for plants Stew.

Stewart said...

Iain - Yes my son....
Chris - Yes I've seen them pulling away at stuff like that before, it doesnt take long to pack up a ledge....

Nige - Yes, If security doesnt throw me out ;)