Its Black....

 

The sweep of Beadnell Bay looking up to the roped off tern colony at the Long Nanny burn mouth and the wardens hut.

Last year, by a quirk of fate, I missed two good birds in quite similar circumstances . Firstly there was the Bempton albatross fiasco with an all day cliff stand watching Gannets.  Luckily the bird returned this year, as I hoped it would, and a second pilgrimage was made, this time successfully.

Also last year, much nearer to home, all for 6 miles in fact, a Black Tern summered in the Long Nanny tern colony in Beadnell bay.  Whilst Black Tern is a good bird in Northumberland, its not something I would go out of my way for. I'd rather hope to find one on my own local patch, so June and July was filled with What's App messages of its presence in the Arctic Tern nesting area, with me hoping it might give Cullernose a fly past. It was always a long shot and did not materialise.

Then, at the end of July, some good photographs were posted of the bird that set people thinking. It was highly odd that a Black Tern would spend this long during the summer in one spot. And, it looked very, very dark. Ideas that it could be from across the Atlantic rather than from across the North Sea were discussed and after some scrutiny and expert analysis, the bird was indeed confirmed as an American Black Tern. 

Now this is an altogether different prospect.   There have only been half a dozen records of this Nearctic race of Black Tern in the UK and this is the first adult in breeding plumage.  I suddenly became interested and decided 6 miles might not be too far to go after all. Unfortunately after a stay of about 10 weeks, today it had decided to migrate, leaving me sat on a sunny evening beach eating an ice cream, and wondering.  Like the albatross, would it come back next year? 

The good news is, yes, it came back last week, so yesterday morning I was up bright and early and on site for 06.45am after a right old faff with the car park ticket machine leaving me 7 quid out of pocket.

There was no sign initially the bird having gone out to sea, but after around 15 minutes it returned to give the best ever views. Watching from the wardens hut decking, the American Black Tern  flew around, displaying and showing aggression to the Arctic Tern pairs, down to about 20 feet! Landing only for brief spells, usually behind marram grass, photography was tricky, but it was a pleasure to watch such a dapper birds at close range.

The features that differentiate it from Eurasian Black Tern were easily seen ( isnt previous knowledge great). It was an intense black, like a White winged Black Tern rather than the charcoal grey of Black Tern. This contrasted well with the pale whitish underwings and pure white undertail coverts. It also showed a very obvious white forward edge to the wings, looking like headlight strips in flight.

Although it does not count as a new bird being 'just' a race of Black Tern, this did not detract from such a nice bird at all.  Along with the American, there were hundreds of Arctic Terns, 16 Little Terns and single Roseate and Sandwich Terns making it a 5 tern day. A nice first summer Little Gull dropped by for good measure. Well worth the trip I'd say...

American Black Tern, Long Nanny.

Beadnell...

John picked me up at 7.30 this morning to head up towards Beadnell for a change. We could have nicely gone down to East Chevington for Shorelarks, Hen Harriers etc, but we're cool on those so we chose to avoid the crowds as usual.

The view south from Beadnell Point. to Dunstanburgh Castle.

At Beadnell Harbour, a Merlin tried to muscle in on a flock of 35+ Sanderlings and a few Turnstones, but it failed and headed south. Off shore, a ⚢Scaup was with Eiders in the bay, 2⚥ Long tailed Ducks flew south and 13⚢  Common Scoters flew north along with a couple of Red throated Divers and a handful of Gannets, Kittiwakes and a Fulmar.

A truly awful photo of the ⚢ Scaup. A futile attempt at digi-scoping.

From here we had a tea stop at Seahouses Harbour where an immature Peregrine flushed the waders on the rocks. I wondered if it was the same bird that had been on the Farnes this week as it headed off out there.

Then it was down to Low Newton. At this time of year we used to have the coast to ourselves. Not now. The place was busy with walkers, with dogs and without so we didnt see much. The scrapes had plenty of birds but nothing of note really. The pool is looking good where the phragmites have been chopped back allowing better visibility.

And that was it really, off home.

Back at home, I took Bunty for a walk along the lane and was over the moon to get some restricted but decent views of the Water Rail under the willows. A really good bird for here and one I don't see every year. While watching it, there were a few small squeals that may have been from a second bird in there. I'd like to get a photo, but until then here is a sketch  to be going on with...

It might just be Fea's-ible....

A sketch from some scribbles taken on the spot. A long thin winged bird, the white arm pits giving a spiky appearance. Some white was in the dark primary bases too but distance was too great for detail. Its my impression anyway...

How many more puns can there be on this tremendous bird?

After a quiet days birding, all the drift migrants have cleared off along with the easterly, a cool north westerly was bound to bring some seabirds. This year has been slow for seawatching and until this morning I was still waiting for my first Sooty of 2014, so we started off down at Craster where Sooty Shearwaters duly obliged, along with Arctic Skua and a few Manx Shearwaters and Red throated Divers. As is the way in the north east, morning seawatches can be ruined by glare on the sea, so when the cloud moved, so did we.

Later, I heard that a Fea's Petrel had been seen off Flamborough and Filey this morning, but never gave it much thought. Steph McElwee rang to discuss timings up to Newbiggin, but I just thought that was too fanciful to contemplate.

Fast forward a couple of hours and Gary Woodburn was on the phone recruiting extra eyes up at Beadnell on the off chance. His positivity was infectious and the twitchy-ness began.

I arrived at Beadnell at 3pm, met Gary and headed off the the point, a spot I have never been to previously. We were soon joined by Barry another local.

Lots of birds were moving, but the sun was bright and the sea blue, merging into a hazy sky. Fortunately, some birds were very close. On arrival we got a strategy in place. I always like to set the boundaries before starting off a venture like this, because it would be a disaster if one saw the bird and the rest dipped. We pin pointed visible lobster pot bouys in the mid distance, pink, green and yellow, so they could act as markers for a rapidly moving pterodroma...

The conversation changed to predicting arrival times, and Gary said, about 5.20pm should do it, but it might be 'fashionably late'.

Tension mounted at 5pm as we knuckled down. Eyes screwed into scopes grabbing at every fly by. We had 20 odd Sooties and Manxies and a few Brent Geese for good measure, when Gary said...

'Oh, wait, I think I've got it...' ' Oh it might just be a Manx'....It was 5.25pm.

Now his tone wasn't 'manx-like' to me so I said that he should let us worry about miss-identifications and keep talking. He then said 'Yes thats it...Fea's, above the green bouy!!'

Everything goes into slow motion as you dread being the dipper in this situation but no, after a few seconds without breathing, there it was! Excalibur! A Gon-gon, a Soft-plumaged Petrel, a Fea's! I thought I was the only birder in Northumberland who had never seen one of these, so the relief was amazing. The spiky, unusually shaped black and white petrel swayed and switch-backed past us at mid distance for about 4 or 5 minutes before being lost from view...Get In! What a bird...

Northumberland 333.