It feels like spring.

 

Alnmouth with Coquet Island in the distance.

Sunday was a calm and pleasant day, getting brighter as it wore on and for once spring was in the air. What breeze there was, came from an ENE direction building hopes that we might come across something out of the ordinary. Unfortunately we didnt turn up anything rare but we still had a good morning seeing a few migrants.  

I met John at Alnmouth Cricket Club at 7am. A stroll down to the water works and flood meadows was filled with bird sounds. Lapwings and Redshanks displaying, Geese clattering around, a Water Rail squealed from a dense patch of phragmites and the sound of Chiffchaffs rang from every tree tall enough. 

A field near the track held some Mad March Hares, in April, with 8 or more chasing and boxing around.

Brown Hares mating.

 While watching these, a pair of Shoveler flushed from the small pond to settle again on a flash near the river.

Next we took the car down to the estuary. From here we covered the rest of the patch including the shore, bracken hill, and the estuary itself.

At this time there is an odd mix of birds of both summer and winter. There was a lone Barnacle Goose swimming up river beside a drake Red breasted Merganser, 25+ Wigeon, 20 Teal, 153 Curlew, a Goosander and 80+ Pinkfeet North while newly arrived birds included a female Wheatear, 4 Sand Martins, many Chiffchaffs, a Little Egret and 15+ Shelduck . There was no sign of the Avocet John had here mid week.

Little Egret

Incoming Sand Martin.

Stonechat on shed in the dunes.

Teal looking very smart in the sunshine.

Wheatear flew from beach and relocated in paddock on top of bracken hill.

 Later in the morning the warm sun brought out a few insects - 2 Small Tortoiseshells and a scatter of Hairy footed Flower Bees.

A small solitary bee, I'll need advice from specialists for this one...Andrena scotica. 

A male Hairy footed Flower Bee showing is feathered legs and the white blaze...

Small Tortoiseshell, the first butterfly of the year for me.

Back home at lunchtime, I was pleased to give the lawn its first cut after a wet March. Now I can let the meadow kick in. In the garden were more Hairy feet and 2 Peacock butterflies...

Peacock in the garden.

  

Expanding.

This morning I set off on an walk beyond the reaches of the Howick patch, over the burn mouth footbridge into Boulmer. Its not that I dont go there, I just usually don't walk to Boulmer.  To save time, I drive to the main car park and work away from there but today, in the spirit of Lockdown, it was Shanks's all the way. The route is below - 

A 9 km stroll took all morning with stops to scan and search.

The target for this morning were the waders at Boulmer that are in good numbers on the mud, but are scarce on my turf due to the rocky shore.

From home to the southernmost extremity of Howick produced nothing new for the year and was all but dead. 10 Goldeneye, 7 Cormorant S, 1 Grey Plover and 6 Long tailed Tits were all that went into the book.

This is Howick burn moth footbridge. The burn is the south boundary of my home patch and the northern edge of Boulmer.

On the bridge, a 90 degree left turn gives this view. 10 Goldeneye and a few Oystercatchers, Turnstones and Eider were here.

Once across the bridge, I am trying not to mix the two lists up so any species over here are only for the 5km list and not for my patch list. In the next bay, Sugar Sands, 4 Red throated Divers were together close in with 1 Grey Plover on the rocks. The very next small bay is Howdiemont Sands ( often wrongly called Sugar Sands by some near locals). Here were a Razorbill, 20+ Wigeon, 20+ Lapwing and a few Mallard. Offshore was quiet other than a scattering of Shags and auks.

From Sugar Sands looking back North towards Howick Haven.

 Once I arrived at Boulmer village and sat on an old telegraph pole in the hauled out fishing boats, I could see 11 cars in the Boulmer car park still. Not one of them local or from the area or they wouldn't need to drive.

While drinking a cup of tea, the tide pushed up all of my hoped for targets plus another couple for good measure. 110+ Sanderling, 100+ Dunlin, 12+ Bar tailed Godwit, 6 Ringed Plover and 5 Knot were the waders hoped for. A single Purple Sandpiper dropped in later. Out past the Boulmer haven a dusky looking, long, stiff necked Red-necked Grebe was a good find at this time of year but it soon flew off around Seaton Point where it possibly landed in with the 200+ Wigeon roosting on the sea. 2 Shelduck were also new here.

As I retraced my path back north towards home I took in the edge of Longhoughton Steel, a huge skeer of rock on the NE point of the Boulmer headland. 400 Golden Plover were scanned for an unseasonable oddity but the best thing here was a Little Egret fishing pools close in.

I arrived back in Howick to the local Hooded Crow waiting on the fence, calling, as if to greet me. A profitable exercise with 8 new species taking the 5km year total to 98.

  

Sunday...

We are getting a lot of 'seawatching weather' recently. Some years we hardly get a day with a northerly. However, not all northerlies produce the goods and its a learning curve of experience to pick out good from bad.

I knew today would be a bad one. The wind was NE and gusty, and to the uninitiated seemed good, but, if you drill down a bit, it was coming off a low in the North Sea, not one that had tracked across the top of Scotland hence there was no pre-north westerly ( are you with me) to blow birds into the upper North Sea and then down further south so they can re-track North.

I know that sounds a bit garbled but I hope you get the gist.

We were on Cullernose from 07.30 until 0855.

It was slow.

Still, we managed 8 Little Auks, all nice and close, some landing in front of us, 1 Common Scoter, 2 Long tailed Duck, 1 Velvet Scoter, 2 Red throated Diver, 2 Goldeneye, 5 Fulmar inc a likely Blue phase going S but only see from its arse end as it disappeared, and 5 Eiders.  Gannets and Auks go without saying.

From here we headed along to Craster for some shelter and maybe some passerine action. We had the shelter.

There had been a reasonable fall of thrushes with 30+ Blackbirds, 8+ Redwing, 4+ Song Thrush, 3+ Fieldfare but no small stuff, not even a Chiff or Blackcap to be had.

Best of the walk were 3 Snow Buntings N, just about 300 mtrs out of patch boundary ( they flew from the patch but I was neither in it or saw them in it so they don't count. 6 Willow Tits are good by anyones standards these days and 7 Grey Partridge, 1 Treecreeper and 4+ Goldcrest added interest.

Time for home I stopped at Johns car back at Cullernose. A short scan of the flooded newly sown field had an adult and a 2nd winter Mediterranean Gull, then just before leaving the mega arrived! A Little Egret [160]no less flew low over the fields and off north! Thats patching for you, only my 4th sighting here in 10 years and one I didnt have any hope of adding to the 2019 year list...

Off work on Tuesday and the weather forecast looks dog rough.... wave watching likley...

It was still quite dark as I arrived at the top car park at Warkworth this morning to meet up with John.

After yesterday's heavy rain and SE winds hopes were high of something interesting in the car park scrub, but, like with Craster yesterday, it was very quiet. Still as the sun came up birds started to get active. An immature Marsh Harrier came from its reed bed roost, circled for a while then headed off north towards Alnmouth.

It soon became apparent that there were some birds on the move over head - VizMig...
Whilst we didn't do an accurate timed count quite a few birds were involved. From 7am - 10am we had -

Meadow Pipit - The main species involved - over 125 birds S.
Redpoll - 16
Grey Wagtail 3
Yellow Wagtail 1
Skylark 5+
Siskin 1
Swallow - began a bit later -  a slow passage south in small groups.

Skylark on the move south....

 Near the golf club  we got a surprise when a Roe doe and two yearlings ran past us. The adult cleared the fence without a problem but the youngsters weren't as athletic and  ran in the opposite direction. The doe was soon searching for them, so we left her in peace. I hope they were reunited...

The Roe Doe, the family ran in the opposite direction...

Little Egret

Down on the estuary, fewer waders than lately were on the flats. 1 Grey Plover, 7 Knot, 14 Ruff and a Black tailed Godwit, all juveniles, were the highlights here. A Sparrowhawk flushed everything including this Little Egret into a close fly past.

Up river, 6 Wigeon were of note.

White winged Gulls and Grebes...

Despite efforts, we didn't see any of those. I suppose this post could have been called Pallas's Sandgrouse  for that matter, but hang on.

The morning was spent hunting around Amble Harbour and the Coquet Estuary in mixed weather conditions looking for those said title species. As the wind has swung to the north for a bit, maybe there will be a northern gull next week? We'll see. Actually we did see some grebes, several Little and one Great crested, but thats not what I meant here at this time of year.

John added six common species to his patch list and for me the highlights were a fleeting view of a Kingfisher dashing across the harbour and out of sight, and a Little Egret flying from Warkworth Gut up towards Alnmouth.

After lunch, the wind increased to a blustery NW, so I popped along to Craster for a half hour seawatch to see if I could add to my patch tally. The seawatching was dire ( as usual at this time of year, but you never know) but some salvation was had by a Woodcock flying out of the scrub at the Arnold Reserve, over the road in front of my car, and off up the heughs. A nice unexpected addition.

With a flexi day off tomorrow and the weather improving, I might get out again to see if the squalls have stirred anything up.

75. Woodcock

Breezy egret.

After a very gusty wind overnight, where I put the moth trap off before bed, in case it flew seaward, John and myself headed down to Warkworth for a stroll. 

It was bright and warm in the sun, but the wind made it difficult to see very much. The days highlight flew in from the west, and settled on a sheltered bit of the salt marsh - a Little Egret. I didn't notice in the field but it had very long aigrettes right down its back as it was coming into breeding dress.  

There was very little else to note other than a Chiffchaff,  a few Tree Sparrows and a Small Tortosieshell around the car park. This Linnet was also in full song, staking out a territory.

After this, a walk around some farmland and along an old railway near Hipsburn didnt produce much either. Chiffchaffs again, 3 Buzzards, 16+ Redwing, a singing Grey Wagtail and a Red legged Partridge was about it really.

The warm sun had the sallows buzzing with insects.