Autumn almost over.

 October is now over with only a single post on the blog.

This might be because this may be one of the poorest autumns birding I can recall. Since August we have had a constant southerly or south westerly airflow. For us on the NE Coast that is about as bad as it can get.

Looking at some stats, Manx Shearwater for example. Not one in September. There was just no suitable seawatching conditions. Same goes for drift migrants. On my patch there have been no Redstarts, Whinchats or Pied Flys.

It shows, people think we have it made watching a patch on the east coast, but that is only if the weather is in our favour. Back in August I wondered if the steady S winds would ever change, and they didn't apart from a couple of very narrow sub standard windows of opportunity.

On 25th September a seawatch was largely quiet other than a few Dolphins a Wheatear and an in-off Short Eared Owl.

Above- Bottle nosed Dolphins and a Short eared Owl at Cullernose.

A brief twitch to Holy Island on 27th September while we were up that way had a nice Red breasted Flycatcher. The following day a Cetti's Warbler giving short snatches of song at Foxton Golf Course pond was a first for the Boulmer patch. The same morning a good count of 71 Redpolls flew S. It at least has been a good year for Redpolls with bird moving S on most days.

On 5th October a nice group of 7 Curlew Sandpipers dropped on to the Aln Estuary. 

On 20th around our village were 6 Little Gulls N, a Woodcock, 18 Crossbills and 9 Whooper Swans S while the glitch in the machine dropped a few Yellow browed Warblers on site with 3 at Craster with a late Willow Warbler and two Willow Tits.

Red breasted Flycatcher.

Willow Tit

Willow Warbler 

Half a Yellow browed Warbler

And thats about it .

So, its no good wondering what could have been.

Winter is coming...

 

 

Seawatching....

Since my last post I have managed to get in a few short seawatch sessions at Craster at the north end of my patch. There are a few common species I can add to my year list if I persevere and am blessed with a little luck. My very reasonable targets were - Common Tern ( I've had Sandwich, Arctic, Little and Roseate!), Dunlin ( I live 300 mtrs from the sea yet this is a tricky species to get here due to the rocky coastline) and Arctic Skua.

You've guessed it. I am still waiting for them. Truth is I have managed a few Manx Shearwaters, lots of Puffins, odd flocks of Common Scoter, 10+ Turnstone in breeding plumage, 2-3 Whimbrel, 40+ Arctic Tern and a pod of 12 or so Bottle-nosed Dolphins.

Now many of you with landlocked patches will be salivating at these records ( especially the dolphins!) but really there is nothing there to get the pulse going. There were Gannets, Kitti's and Fulmars too, but they rarely make it into the notebook in summer or autumn unless there is some remarkable passage taking place.

I wont despair though, dolphins are always nice to see, even through fog (photoshop has removed this from the pics) and it wont be long before something of patch interest flies into view over the waves. After all its just the start of the seawatch season...