HMS White billed Diver

 On Saturday we went for a pub lunch at Warkworth. On the way back as we called in to the CO-OP a message came through saying Ben Steele had a White billed Diver on the sea close in at Seaton Point, about 2 miles away. What was there to do but to head straight there.

A quick yomp south from Boulmer on a rising tide and there it was, a battleship of a bird floating in a weed filled rock channel about 100 mtrs off the beach. The bird gave great views in the scope as it loafed around between dives but when it went under, creating a big bow wave, it was down for ages and would appear well away from where you first saw it.

White billed Divers are getting about as easy to see here as Black throated Divers these days. In fact Ive had two White billed since my last Black throated sighting! This bird was a second year, showing some white spots on the wing coverts.

Back home, a flock of 200 Geese headed low towards our house so I dashed in for the bins. Sure enough the first birds I got on to were 3 Russian White fronted Geese in with the Pink feet. They were too low and quick for details searching for others.

The moth trap was dusted off on Saturday night for its 2026 debut. It was a good success too with 34 moths of 9 sp, inc 3 Satellite, 13 Chestnut, 3 Dark Chestnut etc.

On a lovely fine sunny Sunday morning John and myself went back to Boulmer to see if the diver was around, but, as expected, the tide has been out and in again since Saturday taking with it the banana bill to who knows where. 4 Purple Sands, 21 Bar tailed Godwits and 37 Pink feet S were the best.

As it was sunny we headed a couple of miles to one of our off coast sites. We did a full eBird count with some good resluts. We had 2 Stock Dove, 2 Woodcock, 1 Willow Tit and a singing Dipper, 13 Crossbills inc a nice red male perched in hazel catkins and 12 Yellowhammers. Best though was a fluke while John was elsewhere. Awaiting his return I scanned the rise over the fields to increase the Buzzard count to three . A large rapter flying steadily south attracted attention. It looked to have a longer tail than a Buzzard, then a crow came up to head it off, After some panicking from both birds, the raptor flipped around and headed back north where I could see it was a nice adult Goshawk! White below, with long flappy wings, the hand narrower but the secondaries carried a large curved trailing edge. The tail had some darker banding. When flying a hint of display was noticed with deep butterfly wing beats. I could also see it was a size bigger than the crow too.

What a bird, this is my first Gos east of the A1 up here. Maybe the storm flattened forests since Arwen in 2021 have dispersed birds out into other bits of countryside?

 

A rewilded field that held a few birds of up to 42 species.