Its Black....

Black Scoter quick notes, you get the idea....

A flexi day off work today saw us heading off to Holy Island to do a recce for the Alnwick Wildlife Group field trip on Saturday. The day was overcast and windy at first making the birding difficult. As with Sunday's Iceland Gull, today's first bird was one of the highlights, heard as we got out of the car at the Chare Ends - a Raven! The first I've seen on Holy Island, it continued south along the shore mobbed by two Carrion Crows. When we came back to the car there were two Ravens flying up and down, feeding in the same field.

From here we checked the heugh for grebes and divers with out success, then tried the rocket fields. 6 Black tailed Godwits, hundreds of Pale bellied Brent Geese ( 1 Dark bellied), a pair of Shoveler and a good scattering of Teal were noted.

As it was quiet we decided to leave the island and pay a visit to Cheswick only a few miles north, to see if the drake Black Scoter was still around. After half an hour of scanning, up he popped, the closest duck to us, with 100+ Common Scoter, 20+ Red breasted Merganser, 3+ Long tailed Duck, 1 Slavonian and 1 Great crested Grebe scattered in broken groups across the sea.

It was interesting to note that he behaved the same as the Bamburgh bird in charging around, bill open, calling ( unheard) whilst the Commons, seemed quite non plussed...

This site proved to be the best of the day, the afternoon being spent 'gulling' around the very quiet Coquet Estuary. Best here were 35 Grey Plover at Birling Carrs, 50+ Knot and a young Roe buck.

Back to work to end a short week tomorrow...

Raven, centre, with two Carrion Crows.