Busy busy...

The lack of posts on here recently is due to this. Its amazing how long it takes to prepare a new talk, having to hunt through hundreds of images, process them, decide which to use, do a running order, make it flow etc etc.

I'll be back to normal after the 23rd!

 

End of Winter Figures.

As the month of February draws to a close, its time to check the patch listing stats.

February is always the worst month for birding on my bit of coastline. I have mainly cleaned up on all wintering visitors and resdents by the end of January and spend February adding a few that were overlooked, and hoping for spring.

This month fitted the stereotype perfectly. The month came in like a lion and went out like a lamb, a phrase supposed to be associated with March but global warming has moved everything else forward  so why not the prose? A covering of snow and temps down to -7 during the first weekend added a quick flurry to the list with Fieldfare, Redwing, Water rail, Willow Tit, Peregrine, Meadow Pipit and Collared Dove. More Crossbills, Barn Owls and Pink footed Geese added to the interest.

From then on it was all down hill. On 10th a singing Siskin was species 97 then in the warm, spring like days of week three, Coot  98 and Whooper Swan 99 arrived on the 25th.

This 99 species gives me 49% of my all time patch total score.

What will be species 100 be in March I wonder? Lesser black backed Gull or Redpoll is likely to be followed by Chiffchaff later in the month. Maybe the sea will be the key to some extra additions with birds like grebes and divers or white winged gulls shuffling around from other sites. Or maybe the small pond will pull in a Pochard (unlikely!) or a Wigeon?

Who knows? It will take the second week of April to arrive before the ticking can begin in earnest...

Compare this result against my blogging colleague Steve Gale here...

Peggy Sitting.

A day off work to look after Peggy as our dog walker is on an away day. A few wanders out didnt turn up much on the patch. Nothing at all really. 50 Fumars were on the cliffs, 13 Oystercatchers in the fields, and thats about it.

This afternoon we were in Village Wood and I was eye level with some cracked bark on an Ash sapling, a sympton of ash die back disease.

As I watched, a fly about house fly sized, crept out of the crack. Wondering, I broke off a small bit of bark no bigger than a 50p piece and was surprised to see a tiny spider behind it. It looked like a brown crab spider but it fell off into the vegetaion before I could see it.

I came back a while later, armed with the camera to see if there was any more. I was pleased to find, on the next sapling, a Walnut Orbweb Spider! Quite a size, like a Garden Spider, but much flatter, crab like. It spooked me a bit as it reminded me of a louse or a flat fly. It was very difficult to get it to open up and spent its time tightly furled. Anyway, I took some pics and released it on its way. A new species for me. Maybe my 'crab spider' was an immature one of these?

 

Sunny Patching

What a difference a week can make.

Since last Sunday's post, I have twisted my back dragging a dumpy bag of logs and have been in pain all week, I have had a bit of a thing on one of our local What'sApp bird groups, that has resulted in me bowing out ( it was just getting a bit too fussy for me, so no hard feelings to anyone reading this) and I have had a right old debate on Twitter about a certain gull north of the border and whether it is right to add it to a life list. (No, of course it isnt!).

Social Media and me definately have a love/hate relationship. Sometimes I cant stand it and think 'thats it, I'm packing it all in' then, there are good days with some interesting snippets of info that could not be found elsewhere. Its these things that are educational, funny and interesting that keep me on it.

With that put behind me it was a relief to get out on the patch again. Saturday was very windy and just a bit uncomfortable, but today has been a glorious sunny, cold, calm one.

Nothing of note was seen on Saturday really though I did take a photo of a House Spider, Tegenaria sp, in our boiler shed. I am faffing around with flash, trying to get it to help me take some sharp record shots when there is not enough ambient light. Its all in the 'diffusion' of light so as the image doesnt come out too harsh with dark shadows. My home made diffuser, constructed out of a plastic chinese takeaway carton, some tin foil and a piece of kitchen roll fitted on the front of a 30 yr old flash gun seems to be working. Here is the image below -

Today, John couldnt get out until later on, so it was back onto the patch first thing.

On a morning like today's I feel so lucky to live in a spot like this. No inland urban reservoir for me. The views are lovely.

I began down at the Rumbling Kern. Here is a good stand and watch spot, in a way, its my own East Bank / Patch / Narrow Neck . Its a good open vista looking at the sea, the rocky shore and is backed by some degraded scrub. In the past, it has held Red backed Shrike and Olive backed Pipit in season and it could always produce again. Today I was hoping for lesser fry such as Bar tailed Godwit or Lesser black backed Gull but there was little moving. On the calm water was a single Red throated Diver, 10 Goldeneye, 1 Shag, 1 Cormorant, 10+ Eider and a Porpoise was hunting below.  The rocks held 6+ Turnstone and a Purple Sandpiper with 108+ Curlew in the field behind. On my way back up, the old muck heap by the layby had one each of Grey Wagtail, Pied Wagtail and Meadow Pipit.

The Rumbling Kern view point. No freshwater here, but it still hold some variety.

The track to the right of the first shot viewing south. Some scrub that holds a few migrants in season.

The view north over the bathing house towards Dunstanburgh Castle.

Behind the watchpoint is Seahouses farm. It has an old barn dump and some straggly gorse and dog rose. Stright in off the north sea, whats not to like.

John turned out to join me at about 9.30am so we had a walk through the Howick Estate just a few hundred metres inland from the coast.

Crossbills were very active with at least 7+ birds calling and flying around, but there could be double this. I hope they are nesting nearby? A singing male Siskin was my only new list addition of the weekend. In February and March up here patch listing is a case of diminshing returns, with this little songster lifting me to 97 sp. Also in here were 6+ Bullfinch, 3+ Jay, 4+ Nuthatch, 12 Tufted Duck, 3 Teal, 3 Mallard, 1+ Buzzard and a fly over Brambling.

3 Roe Deer added to the interest as did the first Hoverfly of 2019, an Eristalis tenax female.

Above - The Muck Heap Grey Wagtail.

Song Thrush.

Eristalis tenax, a female, according to Hoverflies UK.

At dusk, a trip to the bottle bank at Craster found two seperate Barn Owls, 1 near the Arnold Reserve and 1 near the Cottage Inn. Still a lot of sparrows were at our feeders with 38 Tree and 30 House Sparrows making good inroads into the feed left for them.

I am off work on Wednesday, dog sitting so, weather permitting I'll get out again to break up the working week...

A 300mm shot of Dunstanburgh Castle and Cullernose Point taken from Rumbling Kern... 

Cold Weather List.

At this time there is nothing like a short sharp spell of cold weather to give the Local Patch list and the patch lister a good shake up.

This weekend has been cold, often below freezing and snowy, more so inland. This has the effect of moving some birds around the countryside as they look for some frost and snow free grass nearer the coast.

On Saturday I was hoping to add the two winter thrushes to the list. On the north east coast they have moved off to the south and west by now so without an arctic blast can be tricky.
In the morning there was no sign but mid afternoon saw the expected arrival of 40 Redwing and 15 Fieldfares into the village. As a bonus, a Water Rail gave its demented mammalian squeal from the ditch running alongside our lane. I stood a while but viewing is difficult. A nice count of 41+ Tree Sparrows were at the garden feeders.

This morning the weather was clear and fine but very cold. The remaining snow was frozen onto dry surfaces. Thesed are the nicest of winter days.

We began at Craster with the intention of relocating the Firecrest but we didnt have any luck. I will keep at it because I think it is a wintering bird so hopefully wont have gone too far. As we looked a Peregrine flew steadily North along the heughs and the village was ringing with Willow Tit calls. At least 5 birds were calling, one of these also went into song for a while.

Tree Sparrows at the garden feeders.

Barn Owl

Kestrel new out of roost with the bully boys waiting.

Song Thrush. A few around today.

A few Goldcrests but no Firecrest.

Great to find so many Willow Tits here including this one singing.

A Barn Owl hunted the paddock and field edges in bright sunshine flushing maybe 15 Meadow Pipits.  The second patch Ringed Plover of the year was in the harbour. This is a good show for this less than annual species here. 8+ Crossbills flew high west, their calls echoing around the rocky cliff faces. Finally 2 Collared Doves were singing from telephone poles in the estate.

We then moved back along to Howick to check some stubble fields for buntings. There were plenty of birds but no scarcer species. There were 20+ Meadow Pipits, 27+ Skylarks, 15+ Linnets, 2 Stock Dove, 200 Golden Plover, 166+ Curlew and 44+ Redwing. 5 Yellowhammers and a Reed Bunting were in the farm yard.

Back at home the view from our kitchen and bathroom windows into the back field gave 4 Fieldfares, a Redwing, 2 Golden Plover, 1 Lapwing, 1 Curlew and 6 Black headed Gulls in a place usually devoid of bird life.

So thats another 7 species added to the list. With common wintering species now drying up, maybe the next few weekends will give something with a bit of zest?



 

Arachnaphobia...

The month starts cold and snowy. Not too much snow for us on the coast but a full covering only a couple of miles inland. It might shuffle some birds down to our green fields.

In winter most of my bloggage is bird orientated but last year I was given a copy of the field guide 'Britain's Spiders' so after joining Spiders UK on Facebook in 2019 I am going to try and get a few arachnid records submitted. Since 2002 - 2015 there were only 36 spider records submitted for the whole of Northumberland - VC's 67 and 68. Very common species such as Garden Orb Weaver and House Spider are missing from many 10 km squares, so it gives me an excuse to hunt dusty house corners on grim winter days to see what is lurking.

My main discovery so far is that we need a new hoover !

Any way last night our porch held three, wait for it, Missing-sector Orb Weavers Zygiella x-notata  and last week I found a Mouse Spider Scotopaeus blackwalli  and a False Widow Steatoda bipunctata.

I wasn't bitten and my life was not endangered. There was no need to knock up a blue and red spandex outfit to start fighting crime, no, just a few tiny spidery things waiting out the cold...

Mouse Spider

Rabbit-hutch Spider

Missing-sector Orb Weaver. 

Month 1. Done.

Late in 2018 my online compadre, Steve Gale of North Downs... fame threw down a gauntlet to compare our patch year lists for 2019. With the first 4.5 weeks over how has it gone...

The month has been largely mild and dry with the last few days bucking the trend with temps down to -7 degrees. Dark mornings and evenings linked to a five day working week curtail the birding a bit ( a lot) but at the start of each year there is a lot to cram in so things turned out quite well. My personal patch highlights, of which every single grubbed out species is self found, as no other birder lifts a glass here are -

Gadwall 1 male, not annual here on our tiny pond.
Velvet Scoter, 1 female, these are annual but usualy in September - November .
Goosander 1redhead on the bog garden pond. Again not annual.
Red necked Grebe 1 a true patch mega with only one previous record in Aug 2010.
Ringed Plover 1 another scarce bird with only 4 other records, thanks to my 99% rocky shoreline.
Grey Plover 1 scarce but annual if I stick at it.
Purple Sandpiper 4 my commonest calidrid, just to rub it in.
Woodcock 1 in the village wood, annual but erratic.
Barn Owl
Firecrest 1 male, only my second record here after 2 together in 2010. A real surprise. Bird of the year so far.
Raven 1 annual here but not at all easy on the Northumberland coast.
Tree Sparrow. A garden flock of 30+ daily.
Brambling. Only 1 flyover.
Crossbill 20+ a good number for January.

Biggest ommissions are Collared Dove,Meadow Pipit, Redwing, Fieldfare, Siskin and Redpoll. Things to find in February...

EDIT - I forgot to add my total! January ended on a respectable patch total of 89 species about 44% of my personal patch total of 201.

With the wind blowing from the far north this weekend, lets hope February can kick off with a Little Auk or White winged Gull maybe... ( more likely the Collared Dove...)