Full of Bull...the Bull is Full...

 A more pleasant day, weather-wise, at Boulmer yesterday morning.

After Storm Arwen, it makes a refreshing change to see the, albeit temporary, return of the Bull's Mere in the village roadside field. This is how Boulmer got its name. Whether this is the original historic site of Bull's Mere I couldn't say, but Id like to think it was here in centuries past.

This area used to flood regularly some years ago but these farmers are expert at drainage and habitat reduction, so it has looked more like a football pitch in recent times. At one stage the Northumberland and Tyneside Bird Club approached the farmer to see if he would allow a small flash to stand. All it would take is some minor amendments to the manhole that would be done free of charge to allow excess water to drain away to prevent flooding but for some to remain longer for wildlife.

The beach at Boulmer is heavily disturbed by dog walkers etc these days, so as soon as the field floods the waders get a peaceful high tide roosting place. It has also attracted some good birds in the past, the best being a patch first Baird's Sandpiper.

 Anyway, that approach was refused, only for us to find a short time later that they had granted permission for a new car park to be put there! Complaints to planning have been made.

We are now gathering any evidence through counts of birds using it to show how beneficial it is to waders etc locally. Today it held a nice little selection at high tide - 

Mallard 49, Wigeon 35, Goldeneye 2, Redshank 61, Curlew 46+, Lapwing 40+, Oystercatcher 50.  While counting, a Black tailed Godwit dropped in briefly. The high tide was not very big so some birds roosted out on exposed rocks. On a bigger one, these numbers would have been much higher. 

When the field has water, it only takes about a day for the birds to use it. Such a shame that this small change in land use request falls on deaf ears.. 

An overly full Boulmer flash. There is a manhole in the centre. This could easily be modified to allow a pond half this size to remain. 

Black tailed Godwit leaves with a Curlew

Goldeneye

Later we walked down to Seaton Point for a scan. At sea were 38+ Red throated Divers, but even these were disturbed by 4 speeding dirigibles hammering around offshore. 3 Little Grebes were on the sea, always a novelty to see on salt water, 12+ Bar tailed Godwits, 34+ Grey Plover, 77+ Wigeon, 156+ Lapwing, 20+ Sanderling and 2 Ringed Plover. Passerines were very thin on the ground today with only 1 Gey Wagtail, 1 Rock Pipit, 2 Greenfinches of note.

6+ Bottle nosed Dolphins were hanging around off the village until the water racers arrived...

Not a bad week on the patch.

 Seawatching gets me a bit fired up. So much so that I forget to take any photos for the blog so here is another naked post...

Before the seawatching there have been a few interesting patch sightings this week, mostly while out on dog walks before work.

On Monday, a year first Spotted Flycatcher flew into our village from the coast path. It was picked up flying over open fields where it looked decidedly unusual, until it perched up in a village tree briefly before vanishing not to be seen again.

On Tuesday there was a proper garden event of the mega kind. 

I had noticed a bird soaring over fields behind us so dived indoors for my binoculars to get a better look. With the naked eye, at range, Marsh Harrier was considered but through the glass only a juv Lesser black back could be found. As I scanned a bit further, a small flock of birds high to the West in direct flight caught my attention as they flew North. The formation was a straight line of 4 with a single higher up. Usually these type of sightings here are of Golden Plover or maybe Oystercatchers so I wasn't really concentrating. 

That is, until it dawned on me what I was watching. All 5 birds had long bills and legs and best of all, white wing bars translucently back lit! They were Black tailed Godwits! What a superb garden tick. Black tails are a rare bird on my patch, we have no marshes or muddy areas so all sightings are of birds passing by. When I say 'all sightings' I mean the one in 2012 and in 2020 that both involved small parties in spring on seawatches.

Those 5 beauties take my from the garden list seen or heard to 141 species. I wonder what we miss when we are not so lucky?

Also on Tuesday a Raven flew over the garden calling quietly as it went.

Wednesday followed in a similar vein when, at Peggy's lunchtime walk a Willow Tit was calling loudly along the lane. Almost annual in a wider patch context they are not so regular in our village with most local sightings coming from Craster or Boulmer. 

Now to Thursday. A large high pressure over the north Atlantic was providing a flow of air from south of Newfoundland, past southern Iceland and over the top of Scotland giving a brisk northerly down the Norwegian coast into the North Sea. Conditions that would surely give us a few seabirds passing. This merited a two seawatch day.

Seawatch 1. Cullernose Point 6am - 7.30am

Slower than expected.

Sooty Shearwater 8N

Manx Shearwater 1N

Bonxie 5N

Arctic Skua 1N 1 S 

Common Scoter 4N

Teal 6N

Red breasted Merganser 2S

Roseate Tern 4

Arctic Tern 1

Sandwich Tern 3

Then it was time to get to work wondering if things would pick up later. I'm pleased to say it did but not by much.

Seawatch 2. 3.45pm - 6.15pm Rounding the wave watching to a nice 4 hours.

Sooty Shearwater 33N

Manx Shearwater 19N

Bonxie 15N

Skua sp ( down as Arctic but it was a Long tailed on hindsight. Dropped a bollock there) A dark juv was very small directly alongside a Manx it was around the same size. It then almost collided with a huge Bonxie lifting off the sea making it look like a tern it was so slim. At one stage a Sooty flushed by the Bonxie that was being agitated by the Long tail all in one scope view as a Manx went past.

Teal 82N

Wigeon 2N first of autumn.

Bar tailed Godwit 1 sum plum N

Whimbrel 1 N

Grey Plover 2 sum plum N

Purple Sandpiper 1N

Roseate Tern 1ad 1 juv

Sandwich, Common and Arctic Terns lingering.

Red throated Diver 1S

Puffin 1N  

A small group of 3 Bottle nosed Dolphins lingered off the point.

Not too bad, but no cigar. maybe over the Bank Holiday weekend? Still, mustn't grumble, its been a reasonable week around the home tetrad. 

 

Christmas List

Ages ago, over the Christmas period, Andrew Dawes of Wessex Reiver blog challenged everyone to a Christmas doldrums bird race. I haven't done anything similar since, apart from the local patch thingy and a laid back, head to head with Mr Gale of Surrey.  I was interested the other week, when Andrew threw down the gauntlet again for another week of petty competitiveness where by we all get out between Christmas Day and New Years Day and count how many bird species we see.

As this festive holiday is often quite busy and taken up with visiting family and friends, the challenge can be taken in a very tongue in cheek manner, the whole point being to have fun during the final week of the year.

My week got off to a damp fizzle seeing next to nothing on Christmas Day ( 9 species) and Boxing Day ( not many more). Today was my first proper morning's birding this month so every sighting was to be savoured and made all the more delicious by the sharp, bright, calm weather we crave at this traditionally dull and wet time of year.

I met with John at Amble, first thing, and we covered the whole south side of the Coquet Estuary from the sea upstream to Warkworth. Not wishing to let the cat out of the bag, all I'll say is that a few nice birds were seen such as Little Egret, Peregrine, several Knot, 3 Purple Sandpipers, 40+ Black-tailed Godwits, Mediterranean Gull etc.

Hopefully the weather will hold this week, and I'll build a reasonable total without racing around twitching everyone else's finds. I'll save that one for 2017...

Amble Pier

Adult Med Gull

Eiders in full display, while not eating Warburtons.

Some of the Black tailed Godwits on the estuary.

The calls during disputes were just like a dog's squeaky toy.

Back to normal...

After the birding excitement of recent weeks, today saw things slow up a little, back into the usual pace for winter birding in Northumberland.

I met John at Warkworth and as the weather was pleasant we just pottered around the area taking a few snaps and drinking tea. No change there then.

A short drop in at Druridge Bay Country Park was all but pointless, highlights being about 70 Tufted Duck and half a dozen Gadwall.

Back up the the Coquet Estuary area it remained pleasant but very slow on the bird front, until we stopped to check a herd of 24 Whooper Swans ( with 6 juvs) and were very surprised to find a flock of 64 Black tailed Godwits in the stubble alongside them! Whilst not a rare bird in the county, flocks of 10 in early autumn or spring are more usual so this large gathering was the highlight of our morning. Further over the road another 13+ Whoopers were feeding in a rape field.

Elsewhere, 1 Little Egret, 250 Golden Plovers, 11 Yellowhammers, a Brambling and a few Wigeon were all we could muster. A nice morning out though, all the same.

Little Grebe and BHG on the country park...

Coquet Estuary.

Old Water Pools, Warkworth Dunes

Black tailed Godwits at Birling

Whooper Swans in wet stubble at Birling.