Where to start...

 This blog is getting ever more neglected. Its like a derelict house just left to decay.

If anyone is still out there in the barren wastes of blogland, I am continuing here when I get around to it, its just that there is always something else to do.

Right here goes, this is just some random things since last time...

So, recently I've started doing some short video clips on my phone, some digiscoped but this one is just hand held with me lying on the ground and this Water Shrew 18 inches from my nose end. It was on 18th August, we were sitting out after work when this little fellow came snuffling past along the base of the wall...Its a while since we've seen a Water Shrew in the garden.

While I am on with video's heres another. I enjoyed this Greenshank at Buston Links in great light on 10th August. Phone hand held to scope eyepiece. Stabilisation in Google Images is a Godsend!

There were more decent moths in the garden since my last post - 

I caught 5 of these odd Coeleophora in two nights. I had them as frischella /alcyonipennella but Tom Tams took the same on the last night and on Gen Det is was Coleophora alcyonipenella, First county records! 

This Teleiopsis diffinis was an unusually pink individual...Steve Palmer at the Gelichiid Recording Scheme has asked for a copy for the website.

A garden first Palpita vitrealis only the 2nd for VC68.

Scarce Bordered Straw only my 6th.
 

A few Heath Rustics have been arriving after an absence of a couple of years.

So we are off to Scotland soon for a few days so I might get some stuff there to blog about...watch this space...or not.

Skuas.

 

On Saturday after giving my bins a good rattle around in a sink of luke warm, lightly soapy, water to get rid of grit and salt spray, I went to hang them out in the sun to dry. As I stepped out of the door, this was the very time a Greenshank chose to come over the garden. The calling 'tyu tyu tyu' was heard easily as it approached out of the mist to to the north, and then, there it was, almost over head and at medium height. In true  Norman Wisdom style I forgot the bins had just been sluiced and raised them to my eyes. The cups were full of water and I got a face full. Champion. I did see the bird though. My first on the patch for two years.

On Sunday the wind continued gently from the north and it was overcast but mild. Time for another Cullernose Point stake out. I was in position for 6am and gave it a couple of hours.

A trickle of 46 Manx Shearwaters headed north as did 12 Common Scoter (9 s) and 3 Puffin. 4 adult Roseate Terns milled around off the point and a Merlin gave a brief appearance as it dashed south across the bay flushing a few waders on route.

It was, however, the skuas that made this seawatch worthwhile. 5 Bonxies were a decent total but only a single Arctic Skua was seen. Out of 9 other smaller skuas, at least 5 were juvenile Long taileds, and the other 4 looked likely too but were just too far to be sure. This is the best showing of Long tailed Skua for many years and probably equals my total tally of these here over the past 11 years!. Reports of birds moving through the county seawatching spots came all day. We even had a 'flock' of 3 together at one point. Of the 5 definites the flock of 3 were dark and the two singletons were paler.

They looked very small and dainty as they slowly tracked north, John even commented that they looked like a nightjar and I could see that straight away. No powerful hunter terrorising the skies here, just small graceful tern like skuas dipping occasionally then steady flight past the feeding terns and kittiwakes.

It went quieter around 8am so we headed into Craster to check for passerine migrants. It was desperate with very little to be seen or heard. We had 2 Whitethroats, another Merlin, and a Common Sandpiper flying high over head calling.

I went back for a short seawatch again in the evening from 6.30pm - 7.30pm. It was still slow but another pale Long tailed Skua quite close and two more skua sp headed north with a handful of Manx Shearwaters. 3 Bottle-nosed Dolphins gave good views very close inshore.

With the wind swinging west this week it seems that migration will be curtailed until the next change in pattern. Its pouring with rain as I write this, so there is still a chance of something in extra time...    

 

Warbler Way...

What a difference a day makes. After yesterdays throw back into winter, today was sunny and mild, if a little breezy at times.

Met up with John bright and early at Warkworth ( John's patch, but Patch #2 for me) to see if the foul weather yesterday had shuffled the birds around a bit. And had it! Spring had finally sprung with a veritable smorgasbord of new arrivals that saw John ticking away like a good'un!

First up, in the car park, a Lesser Whitethroat gave us a run around as it rattled away in the scrub, soon to be joined by a slightly more obliging Garden Warbler. Down in the reed bed, 2 Sedge Warblers were in competition with a Reed Warbler. These birds were singing against a backdrop of Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler, Blackcap and Common Whitethroat.

Over head a steady passage of hirundines went north giving John House Martin and Swift as new year birds. I missed the Swifts as my bins were locked in the car! Dont ask...

Down on the estuary and pools some nice waders were in evidence - Greenshank, always scarce in spring, Whimbrel, Black tailed Godwit and a summer plumaged male Ruff had dropped in with 46+ Ringed Plover and 120+ Dunlin. A Wheatear flew up the salt marsh.

All in all John added 9 new species to his list during the morning, plus a hunting Barn Owl and Little Egret, it was a good morning to be out...

Back home at Howick two new moths for the year were in the trap, a Muslin and an Oak-tree Pug...

A walk around the patch this evening had 2 singing Sedge Warblers and a calling Cuckoo near the pond field. All good stuff...

LtR - Lesser and Common Whitethroat, Garden Warbler

Distant Greenshank

Muslin

Oak-tree Pug

115. Sedge Warbler

116. Cuckoo