The Stag and the Pennymen....

A cold frosty morning turned out to be a beautiful crystal clear day. As John was tied up elsewhere, I thought I would pop up to Seahouses to try and get some photos of the Black Redstart that has taken up temporary residence among the boats there. Unfortunately, things didn't go to plan, as the said bird had 'done one'. I spent about an hour and a half over two visits there today seeing only a few Eiders and 20 each of Turnstones and Purple Sandpipers ( during a recent conversation with Iain Robson I find that these little waders were once known as 'Pennymen' by local fishermen, while Sanderling were called 'Sea Mice').

So, it was time for another couple of miles drive up the coast to Bamburgh to see what lurks off the coast there. It was fantastic first thing, with very few people and miles of clean sea, sand and rock. With the cold northerly numbing fingers and air that tasted like a drink of iced water, birds became just a secondary feature, the 'icing on the cake'so to speak.  I could see the snow speckled Cheviot over to the west and Lindisfarne Castle, Bamburgh Castle and the Farne Islands only by turning around. Can there bee a finer place than North Northumberland on a day like this?

Even so, the local sea fowl weren't too bad either, with several hundred Brent Geese, 5 Slavonian Grebes, 4 Long tailed Ducks, another 50 'Pennymen', 6 Red breasted Merganser and an exhaltation of Skylarks to back it all up.

Harkness Rocks and Lighthouse, known locally as Stag Rocks. I cant think why?

Hundreds of Pale bellied Brent Geese flighting into Budle Bay to feed as the tide drops. There were a couple of dark bellied in my photos too.

Him'n'her Long tailed Ducks

Slavonian Grebes lit up by the sun with the raft of Common Scoter. 

I caught all 5 Slavonian Grebes in this one shot.

Displaying Red breasted Mergansers in a channel across the sand.

Sawbill

After seeing the Goosander yesterday at DBCP in overcast conditions, I thought I would call in today with the sun shining...He's a cracker! There is usually one at Morpeth too that eats chips. Today's just kept having a wander up the boat ramp to get some bread and corn? Cant be doing his teeth much good...

On the Tip...

Widdrington Tip that is.

I used to live only half a mile from here when it attracted Glaucous Gulls and Hooded Crows every winter. The land fill has been closed now for many years and has been planted over with alder, birch and willow forming a wet 'carr' type habitat. Its excellent for wildlife in general but is only a small size, maybe  half a km sq, but it has rushy shallow pools, reedmace, some phragmites and rough grass. It holds some nice birds that you would associate with this habitat and today we had a good selection - Woodcock, 4 Snipe ( no Jacks today), 2 Willow Tits, Jays, Sparrowhawk, 9 Crossbills and - Redpolls. No we aren't sick of them. How could you be really, they're fantastic, never still, never boring .

One or two birds down the right hand side are Mealies...

After a tip off from Nigel through the week, we made a very rare visit south of Amble to check them out. We soon found a flock of 40 - 50 birds but they were constantly roving around, giving odd glimpses here and there. After some perseverance, we had a decent look at them, finding a few Mealies in with Lessers, but no candidates from further north. That's not to say there aren't any, later we saw another flock of 25 birds plus small groups flying in from all over. You would need luck to be with you in this habitat.

Lesser Redpolls

 A view across the big lake at Widdrington had a lovely Peregrine sitting on a soil outcrop, maybe digesting a meal. At Stobswood, a single drake Pochard was good, I don't see many up in my neck of the woods these days and we paid a visit to DBCP to take some snaps of the confiding drake Goosander. Its a pity the light was poor.

And that was about it really, a pleasant morning out, now where is the spring...

A heavily edited image to get some colour on a dark day....

Local Conservation...

A day off today has been spent doing something constructive for the garden wildlife, in particular the Tree Sparrows. All of our nest boxes have had a bit of a spring clean ready for this years breeding season. We now have 8 good, viable Tree Sparrow boxes in pretty close proximity to form a colony, with a 9th box sort of on the periphery that I've left un-numbered as it might not be suitable, we'll see. The three hole terrace is counted as one box not three.

When cleaning out, it was pleasing to see that every single box has been occupied previously so lets hope the same happens this year. I'll be keeping a count of the occupied ones as the season starts. Usually we have about 6 pairs that each have 2 or 3 broods so by September the garden is heaving with Tree Sparrows. Its a bit concerning that this winter despite being mild, numbers at the feeders seem lower with only about a dozen birds present? Maybe they're more spread locally?

We also feed seed all year round for our hungry spuggies. I wonder if a House Sparrow will nest this year? We get as meany as Tree Sparows, but rarely have them nesting....

While doing the boxes I found time to plant three willow rods in the little wood, to fill a gap along the edge....

Turned out nice again...

A bit of a photo montage of this mornings visit to Amble with JWR...

Snow squalls coming in on a noreaster this morning...

We got caught in it....JWR sheltering his camera....

It soon cleared revealing a lovely day...

A party of Turnstones found a batch of edible crabs dumped on the shore and showed well in the morning sunshine...

  

Up to the Guts....

A day off today, with a reasonable weather forecast, so we went birding...

With no planning whatsoever John and myself began at Amble Harbour and worked north.

Amble was very quiet indeed with nothing of note. Further along the river, a few ducks were worth a look, 100+ Wigeon, 1pr Gadwall, 4 Red breasted Merganser, 2 Goosander and 2 Goldeneye fed on a low tide, while a Little Egret flew over the point to the Gut  er Old Water.

At this stage we discussed the local site names for our usual birding spots. Traditionally, all bird records from most of the Coquet estuary were labelled Warkworth Gut. This name, however, is just wrong. Warkworth Gut is a small muddy creek running from the south behind Amble Marina and not the channel edged in saltmarsh and reedbed that runs to the north. This place, where most birds are found, is called Old Water. Now there are some tidal pools at the head of Old Water we have imaginatively named 'Old Water Pools'.

Just to confuse matters further, there is a small, difficult to view 'Gut' opposite the weir laybye, that could also be called Warkworth Gut, but it doesnt have a separate name, it is just known as 'the river above the weir'.

There, that's that clarified. Several Guts, but the real one rarely has birds...

Back to the birds. As we were here it would be rude not to call in to see the Coues Arctic Redpoll for the 5th time. Today the bird was running a bit late and left us standing twiddling our thumbs for half an hour before it and it's colleagues flew in to the usual fence line to allow viewing. There was some discussion about the identity of the rest of the flock. These birds get no easier. Most could feasibly be Mealies rather than the assumed Lessers. In fact only 2 birds out of 30 or so were obvious Lessers, one a very red breasted male and another browner bird, both small compared to the rest. There are definitely 3+ Mealies, the rest are just Redpolls....

Coues on its usual post....

 From Birling we headed up to Boulmer via Foxton Bends where 500+ Wigeon were unsuccessfully  scanned for yanks. At Boulmer we walked both north and south along the shore. There were lots of birds to search through, many hundreds of gulls and coastal waders with a few wildfowl too but it was a day of spectacle rather than substance. A Peregrine hunted the rocks and a Twite flew south. On the flash, a few Mallard were joined by a juv Pale bellied Brent Goose. It was the shere number of gulls and waders though that caught our attention the most. As the tide neared the high mark, the waves washed piles of seaweed around exposing tasty morsels for the birds. There were 8+ Purple Sandpipers, 50+ Turnstones, 20+ Bar tailed Godwit, 100+ Dunlin, 40+ Sanderling, 2 Grey Plovers, 200+ Curlew, 50+ Redshank on the shore. It was great to watch them swirl around and return to the beach every so often.

A sample of waders flying around.

Nearby a young Grey Seal watched us pass then went back to sleep.

Not a bad day, certainly better than being office bound that's for sure!

Grey Seal

An artist on the shore...

Today was a special day for me. I met a lifelong hero of mine. That's not strictly true, as my hero is no longer with us, having passed away in 1981, but today I could definitely feel his presence.

Back in the mid 70's while my school friends were idolising Billy Bremner I spent wet Saturdays visiting Morpeth Library to browse the birds and wildlife books. It was here I found what was to be my favourite book - 'The House on the Shore' by Dr Eric Ennion, a tale of a small bird observatory that was operated on the Northumberland coast opposite the Farne Islands.

Dr Ennion was a GP from Northants, born in 1900. He was always interested in birds and began drawing them from an early age, eventually becoming one of our most influential bird artists.

He and his wife bought Monk's House between Seahouses and Bamburgh to run as a field studies centre for the decade between 1950 - 1960. During this time, Ennion didnt have too much time to draw and paint, but after he left Northumberland and moved to Shalbourne in Wiltshire, he began teaching wildlife and landscape painting, producing a prolific output of work.

Aged about 12, his drawing and writing had a great impact on me. I hung on to every word and gazed longingly at the illustrations. The birds leapt from the page. Ennion had a knack of capturing the real character of a bird, not any bird, but that individual he had in front of him at the time.

So, when I visited Sunderland last autumn to see an exhibition of his work, I was thoroughly gutted when I got there to find access an impossibility due to a damaged door after some rain ingress. Luck was on my side however, as soon after, I heard that the same exhibition would be coming to Berwick in 2016, even closer to home than Sunderland.

The Eric Ennion Exhibition opened at the Granary Gallery in Berwick yesterday and I was raring to get there today, to take in some original works of the great man himself. There were 46 framed pieces on show ( none for sale, you cant get them for love nor money) and at one stage I pondered the likelyhood of me getting away with an art heist. This would be as successful as my trip to Sunderland so made do with some phone shots of the delightful works to bring away with me.

What is it that attracts me to his art? Well its the raw clean style really. No faff, no detail, these are not Collins plates or Lewington airbrushed backgrounds, no, this work just beautifully evokes a scene as if you were standing next to the Dr while he painted.

When I came home I thought, I may never paint on white paper again...
 

Late winter specials....

Off on a flexi day today and annual leave on Monday making a nice long weekend. Today, Phil Hanmer came to ours to replace an old owl box in the small wood next to our garden. The old one was dismal and last summer a Barn Owl nest failed in it due lack of protection from the weather so the new one is of much sturdier construction. Lets hope it gets used.

While out for a walk or two around the patch today, the Chiffchaff is still flickering around the Lane ditch while Brambling numbers in the finch flock have increased to 7 birds, 3 males 4 females. There were still 250+ Linnets and 50 Chaffinches with 1 Lesser Redpoll. Buzzard and Stock Dove kept the flock company in the stubble.

Down to the pond, it was quiet. There were no penduline tits in the reedmace ( prompted by one at Saltholme today!) but the Coot is still present ( please park carefully!)

Howick Hall Gardens open to the public tomorrow to see the snowdrops. There seems to be  nice show so far, all we need is some pleasant late winter weather rather than this grime, wind and rain that seems omnipresent....

Brambling. A male, probably adult but a strategically positioned twig stops us seeing an outer greater covert for contrast...

Iceland comes to the QEII...

Last year a fw Iceland Gull frequented the duck feeding area at the QEII Lake, Ashington. An unusual spot for a scarce gull, so what's the chances of history repeating? Well here we go, what looks like another first winter Iceland. Or is it? Could this actually be the same individual in retarded first plumage? There does seem to be odd grey feathers in the scapulars and mantle and second winters can have a dark eye too? Personally, I think it looks different to last spring's bird...Regardless its a nice bird and shows very well too. Best just say Iceland Gull 1 imm.