Another Yank...

 Before getting on to the headline act, there have been a few migrants around the locale this past week. To start,  a nice male Redstart was flitting along the edge of the cricket field on Monday morning, while yesterday an exciting flurry on Peggy's lunchtime dog walk had a cracker of a Hobby close to, out of the village wood, closely followed by a loudly calling Tree Pipit in the Pond Field five minutes later.  Not bad around the village.

But, getting back to Bank Holiday Monday, Daniel found an American Golden Plover on Longhoughton Steel giving him both 'lessers' at this site this year! That is both Pacific and American Goldies bot rare birds that used to be known as one species, Lesser Golden Plover.

Being a busy day, I played it cool and left it until mid afternoon before popping along for a look. As expected the beach holiday makers were beginning to leave and the Steel its self was quiet.

On arrival only two birders were still there and the bird  was loosely associating with about 60 European Golden Plovers, but keeping out of the main group.

At first, the AGP was asleep on the edge of a rockpool where it stood out like a sore thumb, and was easily seperable from its old world cousins. Eventually it woke up and had a wander around, picking at the seaweed. I was just getting comfortable and was taking some notes  when all of a sudden the whole flock was up and off towards the south horizon. The bird wasn't seen again after that. Later it was noted that a Peregrine had been hanging around, but I hadn't seen it. Still, 15 minutes of viewing was good enough. This was a new patch bird for me and only my third in the county .

So with Bridled Tern, Greater Sand Plover, Surf Scoter and now American Golden Plover, this blog is having a run on rarity posts. Dont worry dear reader, I'm sure that wont continue...

Above, two dire phone scoped shots of the Amercan Golden Plover. Top Some Notes on the bird.

Since the COVID lockdown has been slackened, there is a definite change in vibe across the social media platforms when it comes to birding attitudes.

The new order seems to be low carbon all the way, and God forbid you should stray across the line. 

It reminds me of the early eighties when Richard Millington's book, A Twitchers Diary' was published. At that time, twitching was frowned upon by the more 'serious' birder as being frivolous and of little scientific value. The RSPB magazine even censored pictures of the book cover by blackening out the title as if it was a photo on the cover of a seedy top shelf magazine ( ask your older mates). 

Now the twitcher bashing has started again though for a very different reason. Those who don the hair shirt of local patch birding, while off setting their carbon footprint, look down upon those mile munchers who dash off at the wink of an albatross, seeing them as planet destroyers of no less stature than Thanos himself ! Apparently these 'dinosaurs' have had their day...

We will see.

Where am I going with this? I'm rambling a bit so lets get back on track. The majority of my birding time is spent in a local context, with the odd twitch and day out thrown in to spice things up a bit. Most of my ventures are within Northumberland, but that's because it is a good county for birding. I have been thinking of my last time across the county border after a bird? White winged Scoter at Musselburgh I think? This got me thinking about Steve Gale's 'uber patch'. An area that is bigger than what is deemed managable as one patch but still an area that he spends most of his time.

For me my 'Uber Patch' would be a zone stretching 10 miles North to South and 14 miles East to West with the town of Alnwick more or less in the middle - 

This is not a deliberate area, it just happens to be where most of my time is spent. To be fair  most the area is not even given a look at but it encompasses places I visit for wildlife regularly. Although it is a big area of land, I don't think I am destroying the planets resources as much as some, especially as even in this area most of my birding is done between Boulmer (the square headland to the right of Longhoughton)and Craster .

This morning was spent 3 miles from home at Boulmer. The strong winds made us choose the coast rather than inland today. It was typically 'July quiet', but enjoyable all the same. First off we walked south from the car park along the shore to get some shelter from the westerlies, to Seaton Point. Highlight here was the Cuckoo on the beach, first seen last weekend by John but still present and flighty today. 1 Bar tailed Godwit, 4 Dunlin, 23 Golden Plovers, 32+ Curlews were the start of wader passage here. Or maybe the end?

12 Swifts flew south. 3 Grey Partridges were in the fields while a Shelduck lead a creche of over 30 ducklings on foot past a roost of Herring Gulls, on to the sea. A pair of Stonechats did their best to stay upright in the wind.

Him and her Stonechats.

Curlew

Back at the car for a tea stop then we walked North to view Longhoughton Steel. Here we had 2 Red throated Divers in summer plumage, many Sandwich Terns, 1 Common Tern, 1 juv Yellow Wagtail and 1 Canada Goose South. A summer plumaged adult Mediterranean Gull flew north along the shore. On the sea loads of Gannets and Auks but nothing on the move.

Dunstanburgh Castle and on the left, the Bathing House.

The North End of Boulmer facing Low Steads.

The North End at Boulmer facing due North. 

This wind might swing into the north tomorrow, if so I'll have a seawatch. This time even closer to home...

The moon rose over the arctic...

Picture it. It is 31st December 2017, New Year's Eve, 3.30pm.

Up here, it gets dark early at this time of year, around 4.15pm.

All birders across the land are posting a hootenanny of the years birding highlights across all social media platforms. There are pictures of Rock Thrushes, Yellow Warbler, Orphean Warbler and Needletail. Everyone tucked up at home awaiting the nights revelry, reviewing the best birds 2017 had to offer.

All I had to do was discuss the splitting of Isabelline Shrike into god knows what on our county WhatsApp group, when I saw a cryptic message appear from Tom Cadwallender saying 'I'll be there soon Ben' or something similar. I shrugged and thought Tom had posted on the wrong channel, then carried on. 

I automatically flicked to our 'Rare Birds' channel and was floored. While we were sitting in front of a warm fire, Ben Steele was out in a gale watching gulls roosting on the rocks at Longhoughton Steel near Boulmer. A good job he was too, because in with hundreds of Black headed, Common and Herring Gulls was a little snowflake from the far North, a Ross's Gull, the first to visit our shores since 2014! [ well, after Ross Ahmed's untwitchable sighting at Lindisfarne the other week, indeed this might be the same bird]

I raced along in the car, a 10 minute journey from home, then ran the half a mile north to the spot. When I say 'ran' it was more like jogged, strode, choked, gagged, coughed and walked.

On arrival Ben, Tom and Mu had taken their eyes off the ball and our arctic rose was concealed in a mass of white sleeping birds.  The large full moon rose over the sea and I was getting a bit fidgety. A few others arrived then Farooqi jnr called 'There it is, flying'. No need to panic as it only flew 10 yards then dropped into the pack. At least we now had its location.

In the ever dimming light of 2017, the 7 lucky birders who either live close enough or were birding near enough to Boulmer managed views that varied from ok and reasonable to down right shocking, but when its a new bird for my Northumberland  list, I cared little... this enigma of the ice is one of my very favourite birds, even giving the outstanding Wryneck a run for its money. So my third ever Ross's Gull and a welcome county grip-back.
Unfortunately it was gone by dawn on New Years Day and not seen again... but...

remember people, it is still out there somewhere...

Sunset on New Years Day and some disappointed twitchers, 24 hours too late.

Ross's Gull, adult winter, Longhoughton Steel, Boulmer.