Two Sundays.

 Back at work now and its as if our holidays had never happened. Still it could be worse we are working a mixed system of 3 days from home and two in the office.

I didnt get time to post last weeks Boulmer visit. The weather was calm, dull and mild maybe with a hint of a south easterly breeze. Although not a classic day, there was enough to keep the interest up. 

A few wildfowl were on the move with small numbers of Wigeon and Teal plus 6 Pintail and, scarce here, a flack of 7 Shovelers on the sea in the haven while another flew north with Teal. At least 7 Snipe were seen to arrive from high to the east during the morning. Its great to see these birds arriving after a sea crossing. 40 Common Scoter also moved N.

On the viz mig front, lots of hirundines were heading south intermittently with groups of say 100 House Martins and Swallows appearing then heading low along the shore leaving a quiet spell for a few minutes before another group would arrive. 4 Yellow Wagtails S and 1 on the shore might be the last I see this year.

Lots of waders were around but there was no trace of the Semi-Palmated Sandpiper I dipped by 5 minutes on the Friday evening. It would have been a great patch addition but at least Ive seen one in the county. This is the 3rd for Northumberland. . While scanning the waders for the Semi-P we had 300+ Dunlin, 20+ Sanderling, 14+ Bar tailed Godwit, 1 Knot, 2 Grey Plover.

A flock of 6 birds flying north just a bit too far in not good light were intriguing. I couldn't decide on Black Terns or Little Gulls, but 6 Black Terns here would have been unprecedented. They certainly weren't juv 'sterna' terns. A bit of revising convinced me that they were probably Little Gulls. So frustrating!

Later a brace of Skuas came low over the rocks, a dark adult Arctic and a juv or maybe first summer Long tailed Skua. The Long tail landed on the sea for a while allowing some scrutiny. Beside the Arctic it was very fragile and small looking.

We ended the morning with another 3 Arctic Skuas and a Bonxie.

 Yesterday we were at Boulmer for first light. It was very quiet. Despite coving a good area by lunchtime we had little of note. It was mild calm and damp but birds were thin on the ground.

An adult Mediterranean Gull on the rocks was probably best or maybe the singles of Bonxie S, Sooty and Manx Shearwater N. 8+ Wheatears were the only passerines of note and after last weeks swallow fest we only had a few local birds remaining.

I scanned through 2000 Golden Plovers on Longhoughton Steel in good light hoping for a Lesser or a Dotterel but found neither. Later Ross Ahmed found a Dotterel with Golden Plovers at Monks House! What can you do?

Otherwise in the notebook were 21 Grey Partridges in one covey, 3 Grey Wagtails S, 2 Red throated Divers N and 2S. 28 Bar tailed Godwits in the haven was a good number.

Lets hope for a change in weather to jiggle things up a bit.

    

Skuas.

 

On Saturday after giving my bins a good rattle around in a sink of luke warm, lightly soapy, water to get rid of grit and salt spray, I went to hang them out in the sun to dry. As I stepped out of the door, this was the very time a Greenshank chose to come over the garden. The calling 'tyu tyu tyu' was heard easily as it approached out of the mist to to the north, and then, there it was, almost over head and at medium height. In true  Norman Wisdom style I forgot the bins had just been sluiced and raised them to my eyes. The cups were full of water and I got a face full. Champion. I did see the bird though. My first on the patch for two years.

On Sunday the wind continued gently from the north and it was overcast but mild. Time for another Cullernose Point stake out. I was in position for 6am and gave it a couple of hours.

A trickle of 46 Manx Shearwaters headed north as did 12 Common Scoter (9 s) and 3 Puffin. 4 adult Roseate Terns milled around off the point and a Merlin gave a brief appearance as it dashed south across the bay flushing a few waders on route.

It was, however, the skuas that made this seawatch worthwhile. 5 Bonxies were a decent total but only a single Arctic Skua was seen. Out of 9 other smaller skuas, at least 5 were juvenile Long taileds, and the other 4 looked likely too but were just too far to be sure. This is the best showing of Long tailed Skua for many years and probably equals my total tally of these here over the past 11 years!. Reports of birds moving through the county seawatching spots came all day. We even had a 'flock' of 3 together at one point. Of the 5 definites the flock of 3 were dark and the two singletons were paler.

They looked very small and dainty as they slowly tracked north, John even commented that they looked like a nightjar and I could see that straight away. No powerful hunter terrorising the skies here, just small graceful tern like skuas dipping occasionally then steady flight past the feeding terns and kittiwakes.

It went quieter around 8am so we headed into Craster to check for passerine migrants. It was desperate with very little to be seen or heard. We had 2 Whitethroats, another Merlin, and a Common Sandpiper flying high over head calling.

I went back for a short seawatch again in the evening from 6.30pm - 7.30pm. It was still slow but another pale Long tailed Skua quite close and two more skua sp headed north with a handful of Manx Shearwaters. 3 Bottle-nosed Dolphins gave good views very close inshore.

With the wind swinging west this week it seems that migration will be curtailed until the next change in pattern. Its pouring with rain as I write this, so there is still a chance of something in extra time...    

 

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!