A long tale...

In a solid overcast drizzling dawn, John and myself headed up to Goswick to call in on the juvenile Long-tailed Skua that has frequented the golf course there for the last few days.

At first it wouldn't play ball, or should I say golf, and remained elusive hidden away at the northern most extremity of the fairways. After a little stalking and a lot of a soaking we managed decent views of this usually pelagic pirate.

Clearly we weren't going to do as well as our peers on the photographic front, so we headed back to the car to dry and have refreshments.

Next stop, Budle Bay. From the laybye, viewing here is always a chore with loads of birds around but most of them a long way off. Still we manged a few Grey Plover, 4 Little Egret and a load of Pink footed Geese before we cut or losses and headed around to Stag Rocks for better views of last weeks nemesis the White winged Black Tern.

At Stag, all was quiet so we walked out to Budle Point. Things were much better here with a nice juv Black Tern, a juv Roseate Tern, maybe 20 Arctic, Common and Sandwich Terns, an Arctic Skua,  a Kingfisher, 60+ Pale and Dark bellied Brent Geese, 300+ Pink footed Geese and a Red breasted Merganser. Unfortunately despite spending over an hour looking there was no sign of the aforementioned WWBT so we called it a day and headed back to the car.

In the laybye here we bumped into bird artist extraordinaire, Darren Woodhead and his young son scanning the sea.After exchanging pleasantries we were about to leave when the lad shouted and waved. The kid had just found the White winged Black Tern off the lighthouse! Thats what 10 year old eyes can do for you...

After som initially confusing directions we all managed to see the bird well before it danced its way south towards Bamburgh Beach. An educational bird.

Our final stop was to be a quick scan at Monk's House Pool ( of Ennion fame). Here a juv Little Stint and 4 Black tailed Godwits were the highlight.

Not a bad few hours out with 6 species of tern, you could forget it is October already!

To Bamburgh and back.

We headed off north this morning, though not far, Bamburgh and back.

On the way, first stop at sunrise was Embleton to see if the Waxwings found by Gary Woodburn ( and present since January) were still around. After a short hunt we found two in a garden near the main road. Photographing them in the poor dawn light, was always going to be tricky, but the birds were very confiding so we were quite close. These images are only very slightly cropped to shape. We were also pointing our cameras in the vague direction of bedroom windows, so after snapping a few shots we left the residents to their privacy!

From here was had a short tea stop at Monks House Pool, Seahouses where 13 Shoveler were quite frisky alongside 20+ Teal, several Tufted Ducks, Mallard, Coot and Little Grebe. The dunes- working Exmoor Ponies came to see us, one enjoying a jammy dodger from John before continuing to munch the coarse grasses down to a reasonable level to increase the local flora.

Budle Bay was next up, with its daunting expanse of mud flats.

Spotted Redshank feeding in creek.

The wintering Spotted Redshank was racing up and down the creek feeding behind three Shovelers constantly that, I assume, were churning up edible morsels for it. Also here were masses of wildfowl including many Teal, Wigeon, Shelduck, 300 Pale bellied Brent Geese, 1000 Pink footed Geese. The waders were in equally large numbers with many Bar tailed Godwit being the highlight. A lone Little Egret looked the part fishing in the close creek.

A nearby feeding station was to be our final stop of the morning. Marsh Tits used to frequent here but, as with this species across the rest of Northumberland, this site now seems devoid of them with none reported in the hide logs since last February. Still we enjoyed nice views of Nuthatch, Treecreeper, Great spotted Woodpecker, Yellowhammer, various Tits and finches.

With the weather not being too bad either, it turned out to be a nice morning all round.

Nuthatch

Great spotted Woodpecker

Yellowhammer with a lot of 'pine bunting' chestnut streaking below its throat. Many yellowhammers can show these marks to a greater or lesser degree. 

Last night the first decent moth of 2017 came, an Acleris cristana, a scarce species up here, this is only the 13th for Northumberland.

Acleris cristana, the 13th for Northumberland.