Blue!

All through Sunday night into Monday we had heavy rain and a steady easterly wind on our stretch of coast. This weather pattern is not common during the third week of May and as a result, all down the East coast birders are fired up hoping that it may deliver some scarce and rare birds that have drifted off their normal migration routes, but one in particular epitomises this week above all others - the Bluethroat. 

Bluethroats in spring have a quite narrow window of migration to the sub arctic Scandinavian taiga, and if we are to see one, we need this type of weather to occur between around 10th to the 20th May. Outside of this period in spring a Bluethroat is very unlikely to be seen.

On Monday the rain was steady until around 3pm, then the wind dropped and the sun emerged from behind the clouds. What would it reveal? In the 80's and early 90's we would sometimes see big Bluethroat arrivals but this has not happened for many years now.

No sooner had I finished working at home around 4.15pm than a Facebook message arrived from my neighbour along the road, Mandy. The conversation went a bit like this.

M - 'OMG'

And nothing else? I was just about to reply with 'Eh?' when a second message arrived. It was a close up of a bright male Bluethroat but there was no location. 

Now, Mandy works as a tern warden up at the Long Nanny ( of American Black Tern fame in my previous post) so I assumed this is where the bird had been found. The Nanny has a bit of a good history for Bluethroats in past years. So I advised - 

'Ho ho, get the news out on Whats App' 'Nanny?'

then...

M - 'but its in my garden!'

This was a total game changer. Mandy lives about one field away from me. I picked my jaw up, and went into panic mode, a Bluethroat on our patch!! Grabbing my bins and camera I jumped into the car (speed if of the essence ) and drove the 400 mtrs along the road to the farm. I was there in about 3 minutes flat from getting the message.

The bird had unfortunately flown from Mandy's garden along towards the farm yard and disappeared.

The sight every East coast birder wants to see in mid May...

I quietly quartered the damp puddle edges with my bins and soon there he was, quite distantly in the centre of the paddock before flying off towards some silage bales and farm trailers.

Around the other side from the bridle path a better view could be had but there was no bird? Just then a smashing male Greenland Wheatear hopped up onto the wall not far from me. I took a couple of snaps, then all of a sudden in came the Bluethroat, full of bull, not wanting this Wheatear in 'his' farm yard at all. The Bluethroat landed on the public path sign finger board and belted out a lovely melodic loud song before coming towards me down the wire fence.

My blue car next to a blue van behind the Bluethroat. Incoming...

I rattled off some shots that were almost all blurred due to wrong settings on the camera and the Bluethroat chased off after the Wheatear, to the south behind a muck heap. I left the bird in peace until I popped back home and took the dog out. Returning later on, the bird had settled into a convenient routine back in the paddock area feeding in nice evening sunshine coming quite close to us. At one stage it had a bath in a puddle and sat preening on a clod of earth for a while where we could get better shots than before.

A small group of about five of us enjoyed the bird until the light faded when it seemed to look at an old trailer to roost under. 

Red spotted Bluethroat. 2nd calendar year Male. Male.

The only sour note to the whole thing came the following morning when the farmer had decided now was a good time to move tons of farm machinery to exactly the spot the Bluethroat was using. It was not seen again.

What a great bird for the patch list and many thanks to Mandy for her prompt action in getting the news out. It was much appreciated.

 

 

 

 

They fell for it...

 It seems that the weekend's Easterly weather pattern certainly lived up to its expectations, on the islands anyway. 

Holy Island was sinking under the weight of a fall of migrant birds and and an even bigger deluge of migrant birders with fans drifting in from far and wide to catch a glimpse of the rare and scarce. 

What a day they had too, with Red flanked Bluetail, Lesser Grey Shrike, 2 Red breasted Flycatchers, Little Bunting, Barred Warbler, multiple Yellow browed Warblers, Hawfinch and hoards of padders  ( for those with a notebook, probably rarer than the bluetail) to make for a once in a decade spectacle. For once, this part-time island was more like one of the more popular Northern Isles than an offshoot of North East England.

Meanwhile, those mainland patch loyals still did quite well if you were lucky. No doubt you will read the exploits in the east coast birding blogs, so here are our findings.

As usual, Boulmer was the morning destination. It was unsettlingly quiet with few migrants really. The background consisted of grey continental Robins in every bush and clump of weeds, plenty of Goldcrests, a few Blackbirds and Song Thrushes but no Redwings? Highlights were few with only 1 Yellow browed Warbler, 4 Blackcaps, 1 Wheatear and a late Swift S. Fortunately the Bluethroat looked much better in the sunshine late morning in its small temporary marram grass home.

I have a day holiday tomorrow so if the Bluetail remains for another day, I might take the half hour drive North...

Playing it not so cool.

 

A tiny green warbler in here...

It took a bit of patience to see...

At the beginning of this week Ross Ahmed and Chris Knox found a wing barred phyllosc at Budle Point caravan site. The bird had originally been identified as a Yellow browed Warbler on Monday but by Tuesday it was calling and was clearly not that species. Although still very elusive in heavily foliaged sycamores, many hours of observation by the two finders pieced together the correct identification as a Two-barred Greenish Warbler, despite some nay sayers at first. It is now actually called a 'Two-barred Warbler' but being old school I cant bring myself to use that confusing term as some parties would ( and did) construe it as a brace of Barred Warblers at some stage. 

I wasn't quick enough to go on the Tuesday evening and on Wednesday I had work commitments. Luckily the weather was poor on Wednesday with several observers visiting and drawing a blank.

Thursday was much better. The sun was shining and the wind was in the west in single figure speeds.  I was on site by 08.30 and gave myself 3 hours to connect then I would have to leave for work. After some run around and tail chasing for an hour, the bird finally began to show through gaps in the leaves. I had around 8 sightings totalling no more than 1 minute, but in good light the bird could be seen quite well. I didn't even try for a photo until I had seen enough but when I finally thought I might get a record shot, the bird went to ground and remained hidden til I had to go. Hence the illustration above.

This is a first for Northumberland and only the 8th for the UK putting me on 420 and 352 respectively. Bubo has me on 351 but it doesn't include Fea's type Petrel.  

Back home a short stroll up the back hedge had my first Brambling of the autumn, a Lesser Whitethroat and 2 Grey Partridges. 

On Friday a cool N breeze dropped 2 or possibly even 3 Yellow-browed Warblers into my garden. They showed well in good fine weather at lunchtime.

One of three Yellow-browed Warblers in our garden.

Back in the little bedroom office, working in the afternoon, a vague message came through about a Bluethroat on the shore at Boulmer. Interesting but it would have to wait until someone confirmed it. Half an hour later sure enough the sighting was verified as a fw male Bluethroat, in autumn, at Boulmer! I clocked off early and popped along. Like the Budle Warbler this was another skulker behaving more like a vole than  a bird as it ran along under marram grass beside the beach. Eventually it came out onto the strand line to feed, What a great bird for Boulmer, a site first.

First winter male Bluethroat, Boulmer.

Today the weather was filthy. Heavy rain and a NW swinging E wind made birding all but impossible but a few short walks out had the following - 2 Yellow-browed Warblers, 2 Redwings, 4 Goldcrests and 2 Chiffchaffs in the garden, On the coast path singles of Redstart, Blackcap and Wheatear, 4 Swallows S, 5 House Martins over our village and 2 ad winter Mediterranean Gulls with Black headed's in the coast field. With the wind swinging full East overnight, hopefully Sunday will give us more to look at, and just in case I have taken Monday off too...

October has certainly started with a bang.

Bluethroat twitch...