Migrant Moths

 

Vestal was new for the garden moth trap on 23rd October, a rare migrant.

Especially for Roger...

The other day my friend Roger asked where was the post I had written about my childhood. After some scrolling around here it is.... Click Here

The Little B.......

Despite the seemingly adverse weather conditions for migrants, I have done alright this week and seen a few interesting birds.

On Wednesday, I was amazed to see that a Bee-eater had turned up at Druridge. Likely one of our pair seen on Sunday, so at lunchtime I popped along to get a better view. Unfortunately it had gone north and did not return before I had to get back. Old school Northumberland birders have waited for ever to see Bee-eater in the county, so after 35 years, I thought I finally had a 'blocker' on my list. That lasted three days.... Still, it is good when everyone can catch up with such a precious find.

While scanning for the Bee-eater, a Water Pipit just in front of the Budge Screen made the trip a worthwhile one.

On Thursday there was a short deviation in the long term westerlies we have been suffering with a short SE breeze. Immediately large numbers of thrushes were arriving. At home, Redwings, Blackbirds, Brambling and a nice sat-out Woodcock started proceedings before work. At lunchtime I had a walk along the disused railway lines at Cambois. The highlight here was a male Ring Ouzel, a belated year tick, with 150+ Redwings, 20+ Blckbirds, 50+ Song Thrushes and 6 Bullfinch.

I called in to Druridge again on Friday before work. The Bee-eater was still in residence, this time watched briefly say on a barbed wire fence preening before making off towards Chevington again. A distant Swallow will probably be my last, a Little Egret flew south. I returned at lunchtime but missed the Bee-eater again ( its giving me the run around this bird) where the best on offer was a nice Little Owl perched on a chimney at the farm.

No frame filling insect snapping shots for me, but I'll take it.

     Later on Friday, Gary Woodburn found a Little Bunting on his patch at Low Newton. He sent some tempting photos of this tiny emberiza so Saturday morning found me loitering along the path to Newton Point hoping to catch up with only my second Little Bunt after one on Holy Island in the mid 90s. I have dipped a few since.

At first things didnt look promising with a seemingly birdless tree and too much cover to hide a small brown streaky bird but Gary soon refound it and called us over. What performer too. This lethargic bunting slowly clambered around its chosen sycamore gleaning aphids from the leaves. It often sat motionless for several minutes making it tricky to find but in all, half an hours viewing in good sunshine was enough and the bird just evaporated into cover.

Two close Yellow-browed Warblers together padded things out abit, plus Brambling, Chiffchaff, Blackcap and Mealy Redpoll added to the variety.

Saturday Little Bunting views.

 Sunday dawned in a different fashion with Storm Brian having just passed over through the night leaving us with a gusty NW wind that was quite chilling. Not great prospects for John seeing the Little Bunting. I thought it might still be there, but did not expect to find it in this wind.

Luckily John had other ideas and the first bird he looked at was the bunting. In the early morning light it skulked amongst the same sycamore branched for a few minutes then we lost it. A further two and a half hours passed before it appeared in the open from nowhere. This time it showed even better than yesterday picking tiny aphids off the leaves, and for one great moment it shared a binocular view witha lovely Yellow-browed Warbler! I am tempted to say 'stunning'.

While scanning for the bunting I had a heart stopper when for all of a millisecond, bright grass green apparition with white wing bars appeared in my bins that could only have been a firecrest but its head was obscured by leaves and I did not see it again.  Frustrating.

We ended the morning with a glance at the sea off Football hole where the only birds of note were 3 Red throated Divers and John had a Woodcock in-off.

Not too shabby a week on the westerlies....

Above - Little Bunting. What a great bird.

Rainbow Rising....

Today, we had a plan.

I was to meet John at Alnmouth, we would have a look down to East Chevington for the Cetti's Warbler then a run on up to Budle Bay for wild Canada Geese.

That started to change when I had a call from John as I left the house at 6.40am saying that he had a puncture, could I pick him up. That was the easy bit done, so should we head 10 miles south or 15 miles north? The Cetti's won, being a county tick for us both, so we arrived on site just at sun up.

We were soon in the right spot awaiting a machine gun blast of Cetti's wake up call, but all was quiet. Two cream crowned Marsh Harriers, 9 Pintail, 57 Tufted Ducks, 15 Little Grebes with loads of assorted commoner wildfowl kept us occupied, while over head there was a light trickle of visible migration with a few Redpolls, Skylarks, Meadow Pipits etc heading south overhead.

Half an hour later, Dave Elliott appeared from the small steel hide in the corner and indicated that our bird was vocal, even though we couldn't hear it over the breeze. We nimbly (?) clambered over two fences and a ditch to get to the spot but the reeds were silent. Apart from John and myself, Alan and Andy were with Dave hoping to get a view of the Cetti's. I would be pleased to hear it. Then very faintly I heard a distant rattle. No one else moved. I must have imagined it. Another few minutes passed and again there it was, this time Dave and John heard it but it was very faint. After a while it came a bit closer and we could all pick it out doing its choppy song deep in the phragmites.

Now, this steel hide is, lets be honest, bloody awful. Every movement by its tenants sounded like a drum solo, and it did its best to shield us from all outside sounds, so off we popped outside to see if that was better. Dave left us to continue his search elsewhere but we lingered on hoping for a view.

After a while we were joined by top father and son team, Tariq and Jonathan Farooqi, Bob Biggs, Chris Barlow and Gary Wren, all hoping to add this skulking warbler to the county list.

A few more larks and pipits headed south followed by a low fly past from a Grey Plover, lit beautifully in the morning sun, then, at 9.25am, things took a very surreal turn.

I heard from above and behind us a loud 'blloop' or 'blleep' call. A single note. Down in the subconscious, it made me freeze and every thing seemed to stop until the Farooqi's said 'Bee-eater!'

I looked up and there straight above was a lone Bee-eater! I could not believe my eyes. We are in Northumberland in October with a Shorelark 300 yards away and I am watching the slim, spiked form of a Bee-eater! Then, Farooqi Jnr called 'there's two!' and sure enough, a few yards behind the first was its travelling companion.

A panic ensued to ensure all present were on these fast moving small birds in a featureless sky and luckily all present indicated success. The birds continued north to Druridge Bay Country park giving glimpses of blue, turquoise and orange from a generally silhouetted small dot in the sky.

John kept them in his scope for a full 10 minutes until they just vanished into the distance over Hauxley.

I am not ashamed to say, the air was punched! Bee-eater is much sought after in the  county with no real twitchable birds ever, so to jam in on these two was amazing!

After the adrenalin pumping excitement, the Cetti's was all but forgotten, a nice juv Black Tern flew in briefly and then south and I didn't even care about not getting on to the Bittern that flew up briefly near us. No, the morning was a good one, and I am sure the tale will be regaled well into the future. We didn't make it up north for the geese either.

For the few birders at the other hide who missed them we were genuinely gutted, but now the day is done, I am just sitting here basking in my first Northumberland Bee-eaters!    Things don't get much better...

Notes not done in the field, but back home this evening. I have tried to show them as we saw them with a lot of shadow and hints of colour.  It is difficult to get teh colour down as we had it showing snippets of jewellry! 

Moths...

Its a while since I have posted any moths on here, so this is a photo blog of some recent ones...

The Olive. A rare garden record, my third.

Top - Dark Marbled Carpet, bottom - Common Marbled Carpet showing clinching underwing of DMC compared to the obvious CMC.

Rush Veneer a scarce migrant here.

Another scarce migrant, Rusty Dot Pearl.

Sallow, I like this one on Fox and Cubs.

This drab creature is a first for Northumberland, a Leek Moth. Always good to get a county first.

Only my second ever Red Underwing avoiding the trap altogether. Bait especially laid out for this and Old Lady. The latter still not on the Howick list.

Scarce Bordered Straw, a garden first of this rare migrant up here.

Dark Spectacle, the latest county record by 1 day.

My second Northumberland first, a Feathered Ranunculus. A macro first! Get in....

Everyone's fave, Merveille du Jour.

Chestnut.

Dark Chestnut

Red line Quaker.

A phal of a day...

Yesterday before work, another Yellow browed Warbler or possibly two, were in sycamores 100 mtrs south of the Howick sea view lay bye. Almost as scarce now here, a Collared Dove flew from the trees and off south? A migrant perhaps? Also 14 Meadow Pipits S, 45 Pinkfeet W and 5 Siskin E made for some random viz mig. 

Today I was at work when news emerged that Janet Dean had found a juv Red necked Phalarope on the Budge Fields at Druridge. Its a while since I have seen one locally so i paid it a lunchtime visit. The bird fed constantly to the left of the small hide picking at the water surface like a sewing machine and was even rather feisty towards a passing Mallard 4x its size!

As there was little else of note it was time to head back to work...

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Two Barred.

Not Crossbill or Greenish Warbler, no, a tale of two Barred Warblers that's all. Calm down.

On Friday I finally made it along to have a look for the Barred Warbler found by Alan Priest on the Newbiggin Ash Lagoon banks. Earlier, Hector Galley had it right out in the open sunning itself, but by the time I arrived it had gone to ground. I stood for an hour seeing Dunnocks, Robins and Wrens by no lumbering sylvia. I decided to call it a rap, and go back to work when an overly excited Blackbird flushed another bird up into a small whitebeam bush - it was the Barred.

It showed well, albeit quite distantly for a passerine but I did get decent scope views for a few minutes before it dropped back to cover. I'll come back on Sunday with John, I mused....

Today we began with a dawn seawatch from the Church Point at Newbiggin. It was generally quiet but there was a good movement of Barnacle Geese in smallish skeins that ended up with 700 birds into the notebook. A Bonxie, 3 Arctic Skuas and 10 Red throated Divers padded it out a bit, but it was slow so we headed across to check out the Barred again.

It was an ideal flat calm, overcast, quiet morning. Bramblings were arriving overhead and we had some decent viz-migging with 33 Tree Sparrows, 10+ Skylarks, a good number of alba wagtails and several Meadow Pipits but try as we might there was no Barred Warbler. I managed a hopeless glimpse of a birds arse end dropping off a low whitebeam that was likely it, but it didn't resurface.

So it was time for a cuppa and where else was there to go other than to look for another Barred Warbler, this time found by Iain Robson at Druridge.

A sizeable crowd had gathered around a large elder bush and waited. Staying cool, we had tea and biscuits.

Soon the call went up, the bird had been seen. Flasks were stowed and dregs tipped. As we made our way along, the crowd was looking at one side of the bush so we waited at the other end. As soon as we stopped, a lovely ,dove grey, Barred Warbler popped out to snatch some elderberries. Then promptly vanished to be replaced by a Garden Warbler!

Anyway, with a little patience, everyone finally managed good views of the Barred, as it fed on sloes and elderberries with 2+ Garden Warblers. It made those, look like little chiffchaffs such was its bulk.

We waited to get some pictures but the results speak for themselves, and it was all too soon time for home...

A long tale...

In a solid overcast drizzling dawn, John and myself headed up to Goswick to call in on the juvenile Long-tailed Skua that has frequented the golf course there for the last few days.

At first it wouldn't play ball, or should I say golf, and remained elusive hidden away at the northern most extremity of the fairways. After a little stalking and a lot of a soaking we managed decent views of this usually pelagic pirate.

Clearly we weren't going to do as well as our peers on the photographic front, so we headed back to the car to dry and have refreshments.

Next stop, Budle Bay. From the laybye, viewing here is always a chore with loads of birds around but most of them a long way off. Still we manged a few Grey Plover, 4 Little Egret and a load of Pink footed Geese before we cut or losses and headed around to Stag Rocks for better views of last weeks nemesis the White winged Black Tern.

At Stag, all was quiet so we walked out to Budle Point. Things were much better here with a nice juv Black Tern, a juv Roseate Tern, maybe 20 Arctic, Common and Sandwich Terns, an Arctic Skua,  a Kingfisher, 60+ Pale and Dark bellied Brent Geese, 300+ Pink footed Geese and a Red breasted Merganser. Unfortunately despite spending over an hour looking there was no sign of the aforementioned WWBT so we called it a day and headed back to the car.

In the laybye here we bumped into bird artist extraordinaire, Darren Woodhead and his young son scanning the sea.After exchanging pleasantries we were about to leave when the lad shouted and waved. The kid had just found the White winged Black Tern off the lighthouse! Thats what 10 year old eyes can do for you...

After som initially confusing directions we all managed to see the bird well before it danced its way south towards Bamburgh Beach. An educational bird.

Our final stop was to be a quick scan at Monk's House Pool ( of Ennion fame). Here a juv Little Stint and 4 Black tailed Godwits were the highlight.

Not a bad few hours out with 6 species of tern, you could forget it is October already!