The Weekend

 What a glorious weekend that was. Lovely sunny days and calm with it, but despite the conditions, nothing new was found for the 5kmr patch.

On Friday, a pair of Collared Doves below my feeders then displaying around the village were noteworthy in a local patch context. These are the first I've had on the deck this year. It is much much easier to see a Barn Owl, Fulmar, Kittiwakes etc here than Collared Dove. Imagine then, when numbers increased to 3 birds on Saturday. I was well chuffed! 

As the weather was nice, Saturday was spent gardening and keeping an eye on the sky overhead. From here I was lucky enough to get in on the Whooper Swan passage that has been a feature over Northern England over the past couple of days. The first flock was over 100 birds in a string, moving along the coast path, followed a bit later by 50 birds. Not the big numbers seen in some places but 150 Whoopers from the garden cant be bad.

While pottering, my first butterfly, a Small Tortoiseshell, was seen and a Tree Bumblebee too.

Sunday morning was spent along at Boulmer. For the second weekend in a row, no new birds were noted but we did dip out on Snow Bunting and Sandwich Tern. They should be added during the year so no real concerns here.

Boulmer Village and haven from the south.

From Seaton Point in the South to Longhoughton Steel in the North we had 19 Bar tailed Godwits,  3 Grey Plover, 27 Sanderling, 6 Ringed Plover, 50 Dunlin, 42,14 and 2 Whooper Swans N, 9 Shelduck, 4 Teal, 2 Common Scoter, 1 Red throated Diver, a pair of Red breasted Merganser, a Barn Owl and 3 Stonechat.

Whooper Swans on passage.

 

Back home, 2 pairs of Grey Partridge were in the back field.

The weather is going to deteriorate this week so in might be a while before there are any local hirundines, despite two Swallows and a few Sand Martins in the county yesterday.