I see a Rainbow Rising....

 Whats going on? My local patch is getting some good birds. After last weeks post anyone would think I had peaked for the year but no, that was just an apperitif. Things were going to take an upward turn...

Saturday 31st May. 

Jane is off to Newcastle with friends, so me and Peggy are left at a loose end back at home. I could have gone birding, but no, I am out on Sunday so I thought I might use my free time productively for the good of the village.

Our Village Hall has a small wildlife pond less than 100 mtrs from our house and it needed a bit more of a tidy up after starting it last month. Then, with the help of a few Coast Care Volunteers, we removed some choking vegetation to create more open water for amphibians. This was done successfully and in no time we had Toads, Smooth and Palmate Newts back where they belong.

We stacked a large mound of chopped soft vegetation on the decking where it was up to me to mulch around shrubs with it at a later date. Today was the day.

Armed with a wheelbarrow of tools I pottered off down to the pond. While I am here, it looked like it could do with a top up so the hose was deployed and left to run into the shallows as I worked. After a few barrow loads of rotten rushes and iris leaves had been removed a movement over the water caught my attention. It was a female Broad bodied Chaser and she was egg laying. She delicately dipped up and down to the surface, touching the water with her abdomen each time. She is the first Broad bodied Chaser I have seen on the patch so I was very pleased.

An old shot of a female Broad bodied Chaser. I didnt have my camera with me for the sighting above.

At 4pm I had finished the donkey work and was now using the hose to wash off the decking to tidy the site.

As I did this, in a trance really, a quiet soft call made me pause. Now it couldnt be. Surely not? Could it?.

Not really expecting anything at all, I stopped hosing and glanced beyond the pond to the Old Rectory paddock opposite to see a BEE-EATER gliding around! ( In the top image the bird was half way out to that Shepherds hut.) The funny thing is I was quite relaxed about it. I stood and watched it flap and glide when it called again , then moved off behind some tall sycamore trees and off south.

It was time to put the word out incase it might be picked up by birders south of me, so I walked back home collected my Bins, Camera and the dog and headed back out, hoping the bird might be sitting on some wires for me to get a photograph.

We walked back through the village where there was no sight or sound  (de-ja-vu Rosefinch) and out along the lane. Three quarters of the way along I stopped to scan east with the bins. It was now 4.15 and I expected the bird to be away south by now when all of a sudden, there it was. It was distant as it arced up over the rise in the fields. It was feeding beside Seahouses Farm where cattle would attract some flies. This is two fields from my current position so off we strode with purpose.

Arriving at the spot there was no sign of the Bee-eater. only a few Swifts were hawking around. I gave it 10 minutes then left to knock up some notes while the sighting was fresh in my mind.

I see today that it was seen yesterday at Spurn and this morning along the Lincs coast.

What a bird for my village. I have hoped for one for years and each summer on a daily basis day dream as I scan the phone wires across the fields. Despite not seeing it perched up, my sighting was good enough for me, and it wont be beaten this year thats for sure...

  

 

The Little B.......

Despite the seemingly adverse weather conditions for migrants, I have done alright this week and seen a few interesting birds.

On Wednesday, I was amazed to see that a Bee-eater had turned up at Druridge. Likely one of our pair seen on Sunday, so at lunchtime I popped along to get a better view. Unfortunately it had gone north and did not return before I had to get back. Old school Northumberland birders have waited for ever to see Bee-eater in the county, so after 35 years, I thought I finally had a 'blocker' on my list. That lasted three days.... Still, it is good when everyone can catch up with such a precious find.

While scanning for the Bee-eater, a Water Pipit just in front of the Budge Screen made the trip a worthwhile one.

On Thursday there was a short deviation in the long term westerlies we have been suffering with a short SE breeze. Immediately large numbers of thrushes were arriving. At home, Redwings, Blackbirds, Brambling and a nice sat-out Woodcock started proceedings before work. At lunchtime I had a walk along the disused railway lines at Cambois. The highlight here was a male Ring Ouzel, a belated year tick, with 150+ Redwings, 20+ Blckbirds, 50+ Song Thrushes and 6 Bullfinch.

I called in to Druridge again on Friday before work. The Bee-eater was still in residence, this time watched briefly say on a barbed wire fence preening before making off towards Chevington again. A distant Swallow will probably be my last, a Little Egret flew south. I returned at lunchtime but missed the Bee-eater again ( its giving me the run around this bird) where the best on offer was a nice Little Owl perched on a chimney at the farm.

No frame filling insect snapping shots for me, but I'll take it.

     Later on Friday, Gary Woodburn found a Little Bunting on his patch at Low Newton. He sent some tempting photos of this tiny emberiza so Saturday morning found me loitering along the path to Newton Point hoping to catch up with only my second Little Bunt after one on Holy Island in the mid 90s. I have dipped a few since.

At first things didnt look promising with a seemingly birdless tree and too much cover to hide a small brown streaky bird but Gary soon refound it and called us over. What performer too. This lethargic bunting slowly clambered around its chosen sycamore gleaning aphids from the leaves. It often sat motionless for several minutes making it tricky to find but in all, half an hours viewing in good sunshine was enough and the bird just evaporated into cover.

Two close Yellow-browed Warblers together padded things out abit, plus Brambling, Chiffchaff, Blackcap and Mealy Redpoll added to the variety.

Saturday Little Bunting views.

 Sunday dawned in a different fashion with Storm Brian having just passed over through the night leaving us with a gusty NW wind that was quite chilling. Not great prospects for John seeing the Little Bunting. I thought it might still be there, but did not expect to find it in this wind.

Luckily John had other ideas and the first bird he looked at was the bunting. In the early morning light it skulked amongst the same sycamore branched for a few minutes then we lost it. A further two and a half hours passed before it appeared in the open from nowhere. This time it showed even better than yesterday picking tiny aphids off the leaves, and for one great moment it shared a binocular view witha lovely Yellow-browed Warbler! I am tempted to say 'stunning'.

While scanning for the bunting I had a heart stopper when for all of a millisecond, bright grass green apparition with white wing bars appeared in my bins that could only have been a firecrest but its head was obscured by leaves and I did not see it again.  Frustrating.

We ended the morning with a glance at the sea off Football hole where the only birds of note were 3 Red throated Divers and John had a Woodcock in-off.

Not too shabby a week on the westerlies....

Above - Little Bunting. What a great bird.

Rainbow Rising....

Today, we had a plan.

I was to meet John at Alnmouth, we would have a look down to East Chevington for the Cetti's Warbler then a run on up to Budle Bay for wild Canada Geese.

That started to change when I had a call from John as I left the house at 6.40am saying that he had a puncture, could I pick him up. That was the easy bit done, so should we head 10 miles south or 15 miles north? The Cetti's won, being a county tick for us both, so we arrived on site just at sun up.

We were soon in the right spot awaiting a machine gun blast of Cetti's wake up call, but all was quiet. Two cream crowned Marsh Harriers, 9 Pintail, 57 Tufted Ducks, 15 Little Grebes with loads of assorted commoner wildfowl kept us occupied, while over head there was a light trickle of visible migration with a few Redpolls, Skylarks, Meadow Pipits etc heading south overhead.

Half an hour later, Dave Elliott appeared from the small steel hide in the corner and indicated that our bird was vocal, even though we couldn't hear it over the breeze. We nimbly (?) clambered over two fences and a ditch to get to the spot but the reeds were silent. Apart from John and myself, Alan and Andy were with Dave hoping to get a view of the Cetti's. I would be pleased to hear it. Then very faintly I heard a distant rattle. No one else moved. I must have imagined it. Another few minutes passed and again there it was, this time Dave and John heard it but it was very faint. After a while it came a bit closer and we could all pick it out doing its choppy song deep in the phragmites.

Now, this steel hide is, lets be honest, bloody awful. Every movement by its tenants sounded like a drum solo, and it did its best to shield us from all outside sounds, so off we popped outside to see if that was better. Dave left us to continue his search elsewhere but we lingered on hoping for a view.

After a while we were joined by top father and son team, Tariq and Jonathan Farooqi, Bob Biggs, Chris Barlow and Gary Wren, all hoping to add this skulking warbler to the county list.

A few more larks and pipits headed south followed by a low fly past from a Grey Plover, lit beautifully in the morning sun, then, at 9.25am, things took a very surreal turn.

I heard from above and behind us a loud 'blloop' or 'blleep' call. A single note. Down in the subconscious, it made me freeze and every thing seemed to stop until the Farooqi's said 'Bee-eater!'

I looked up and there straight above was a lone Bee-eater! I could not believe my eyes. We are in Northumberland in October with a Shorelark 300 yards away and I am watching the slim, spiked form of a Bee-eater! Then, Farooqi Jnr called 'there's two!' and sure enough, a few yards behind the first was its travelling companion.

A panic ensued to ensure all present were on these fast moving small birds in a featureless sky and luckily all present indicated success. The birds continued north to Druridge Bay Country park giving glimpses of blue, turquoise and orange from a generally silhouetted small dot in the sky.

John kept them in his scope for a full 10 minutes until they just vanished into the distance over Hauxley.

I am not ashamed to say, the air was punched! Bee-eater is much sought after in the  county with no real twitchable birds ever, so to jam in on these two was amazing!

After the adrenalin pumping excitement, the Cetti's was all but forgotten, a nice juv Black Tern flew in briefly and then south and I didn't even care about not getting on to the Bittern that flew up briefly near us. No, the morning was a good one, and I am sure the tale will be regaled well into the future. We didn't make it up north for the geese either.

For the few birders at the other hide who missed them we were genuinely gutted, but now the day is done, I am just sitting here basking in my first Northumberland Bee-eaters!    Things don't get much better...

Notes not done in the field, but back home this evening. I have tried to show them as we saw them with a lot of shadow and hints of colour.  It is difficult to get teh colour down as we had it showing snippets of jewellry!