Surfie Seconds...

 On Monday night after work, I couldnt resist popping along the road to see if I could get the Surf Scoter while I was actually on patch, rather than just watching the bird on the patch from beyond. After a spell without any sign, tonight the sea had a bigger swell with some quite large waves rolling in making viewing more tricky. Then all of a sudden up it popped. This time it was only half the range of yesterdays views and was well lit in the evening sun. All of its features could be appreciated, including that daft 'zoom lolly' of a bill... 

To be fair, I am well pleased with this. Sea Ducks are not in large numbers on my patch so to get one of these actually on the sea rather than a fly by was never expected....

Pity I forgot to take my phone, I might have improved on the phone scoped efforts... I took notes instead and worked them up later...

  The only other things of note seen were 3 Common Sandpipers together pushed by the tide onto one rock and a Painted Lady butterfly, only my second this year. Speaking of butterflies reminds me, the first Autumn Holly Blue was out in our garden yesterday...

A new month...

 So, January finished with my patch list standing at 87. This is about average or maybe a bit under.

The best bird so far was the Great Northern Diver last week, annual here but always a nice one to get. Other, better, species have remained elusive. No Kingfisher, Raven or Med Gull and most years gives an oddity for January like Firecrest, Little Gull, Marsh Harrier, Little Egret etc but not this time. Even our local Barn Owls seem to have moved elsewhere. For a bird that used to be a daily occurrence, that is a bit worrying.

At least the days will now lengthen a bit more noticeably and it wont be long before the birds start to sing. So far only a Coal Tit has graced my ears, but I'm sure Great Tit, Song Thrush and Chaffinch wont be far behind.

Recently I have had pop ups on social media regarding the weather, with a few sources reporting the possibility of a Beast from the East, the UK covered in 4" of snow and prolonged freezing temperatures yet I cant see anything at all like that in the forecast. Last year we had a lot of named storms over the winter with Arwen, Eunice etc but I've not noticed any names so far this year ( thank God)? At least the Snowdrops, Winter Aconites and Winter Heliotrope are all in flower to remind us that the dark days are almost over...

Another type of patch list, if you like, is underway here . The Spiders in the Bathroom List 2023. I bet there's not an option for that on Bubo. Here are the additions so far and to be fair the only wildlife pics I've taken this year with my camera. This project reduces the need for Hoovering....

I began this post with an idea of something to write, but it has slipped my mind? 

Theridion species likely melanurum

Amaurobius ferox

Amaurobius similis

Erategena sp likely juv Giant House Spider

Not so wild fowl...

 Caught up in the Bluethroat moment I forgot to blog about some other good patch birds seen recently.  When I say 'good' before I go on, remember its all relative. No wonder I forgot about them...

Lets get this one out of the way first as it is as rare as the Bluethroat on patch. A full new species in fact. On the 12th I was walking Peggy along the coast road first thing when I noticed a 'Greylag' coming low towards me from the north. Meh.... I'm not sure what made me raise the bins, maybe it was the white looking leading edge to the wings, I don't know, but a genuine frisson of excitement came when I saw that this was no Greylag goose.

It was NU2517's first Egyptian Goose.  It is many years since an Egyptian Goose received such a long gaze as this one from me as it called and eyeballed me on the way past...

I'm not sure when one of these will grace the pages of my sketchbook again, but it is a full patch tick so...

A pale headed male Yellow Wagtail flying around a little further on could have been a 'Channel' Wagtail but it soon flew north. 

The tropical flavour was still with us last Wednesday when a drake Mandarin spent a couple of days on the pond. This is the third here in recent years, so still in the Rare category for the patch. The only individual I've managed to get a photo of on site too...

Mandarin.

Blog reader numbers have dropped a bit recently, and those two might be the nail in the coffin, but come on, they all count as natives. With this run of good luck what next, Ring necked Parakeet ?

Other than these, a calling Cuckoo a few times just west of us remains elusive though I did hear it from the garden the other morning. 

Still not quite caught up, but Sundays walk will get a new post later...  

 

The List begins...

 Alan Tilmouth suggested we do a 5km radius from home lockdown list this year which sounds good. For me it must nearly double my existing patch which is around my house anyway. 

The 5km radius from home above and my existing patch below. It merges the Boulmer and Howick patches into one.

I will keep it in mind, but the likelyhood is, I wont visit most of the area, focussing on my usual two 'patches'.

So far in 2021, the weather has been pretty grim with heavy rain and sleet flooding everywhere and strongish onshore winds making it quite cold. I have been out and about each day for no more than a couple of hours, most wanders have been attached to the dog...

In doing this I have gathered a reasonable 4 day total of 79 species around the village, the best being Hooded Crow, Mediterranean Gull, Brent Goose, Kingfisher, Grey Plover and Purple Sandpiper.

Yesterday was damp but interesting with a good count of 229 Curlew feeding in the now soaked field along the coast path at the bathing house, 11 Stock Doves was also a decent total for here while a short seawatch had over 300+ Kittiwakes N along with about 20+ Gannets both tricky to get this early in the year ( though both are abundant from summer onwards). 25+ Siskins and 9 Tufted Duck were at the Pond Field and a Snipe was an oddity on our small village pond. The local Barn Owl showed well one day from the kitchen window while 450+ Pink footed Geese flew south overhead.

Nothing to get birders arriving so far but its nice to get the foundations laid...

  

 

Close of play...

Well as 2019 draws to a close, its the time of year when we all summarise what has gone before and generally ponder what the coming year may bring.

This year I focused on my local patch year list, with some invertebrate hunting, mothing and county twitching thrown in to add variety.

The local patch listing did very well indeed, with a decade long record being broken!

In the end of a very memorable year birding within one mile of by home produced 163 species beating my best ever in 2010 by a single species. This total equates to 80.29% of my overall list, for here, of 203 species.

Before I get to the highlights, in true birder fashion, it is what is missed that often becomes the most intriguing. For example, despite living 300 mtrs from the north sea, drift migrants are now rarer than some formerly rare species. There were no Redstart ( last 2017), Garden Warbler ( last 2016) , Pied Fly ( last 2015) or Spotted Fly ( last 2018). Other absentees were -   Marsh Harrier, Osprey, Greenshank, White winged Gulls, Cuckoo, Asio Owls, Tree Pipit and Twite.

Never mind, you can't get them all. I shouldnt complain because many a patch watcher would drool at the birds I did see -

Scaup, the 4th record seawatching.
Mandarin  1 drake on the pond in May, my 2nd record.
Black throated Diver, several.
Great Northern Diver, ditto.
Leach's Petrel 1 on 29th October was only my second ever and first on patch. One of the years best.
Red necked Grebe 3 a great showing, there last record I had here was in 2010 so one on the sea in January and two N on a seawatch in October was excellent.
Little Egret 1 N my 3rd here.
Water Rail always surprising since they occur in wet woodland here.
Bar tailed Godwit a few seen on seawatches, a common wader both north and south of me, but not on my rocky stretch of shore.
Green Sandpiper 2 were the first since 2015.
Pomarine Skua a few, almost annual but always good to get.
Little Gull, several inc 17 N on 21st October was my best showing here.
Sabine's Gull 1 juv N on 1st October  was only my 2nd here after one in 2017.
Mediterranean Gull increasing with up to 4 birds seen together.
Little Tern 2 S in July were my first since 2015.
Roseate Tern, annual here but it would be churlish to leave such a good bird off this list.
[Gull billed Tern 1 S close in along the coast remains very tantalising. I have not added it to these totals.]
Little Auk again, annual in late autumn. Up to 30 seen on several dates.
Ring Ouzel 1 male in April was my first spring bird.
Waxwing 1 in Ocober, again almost annual here in late autumn.
Yellow browed Warbler 5 this year was a record showing. Now commoner than so called common migrants!
Firecrest 1 in January was the years first surprise, only my second record.
Marsh Tit 1 with Willow Tits at Craster in autumn was a nice suprise now that thsi bird is extinct as a breeder since 2010.
Willow Tit up to 6 at a time at Craster.
Hooded Crow 1 in April was a site first for me.
Raven, our rare breeders continue to be seen irregularly through the year.
Snow Bunting, single birds over Cullernose while seawatching.

 The best sighting though had to be the most outrageous. A juvenile Giant Petrel sp N on 2nd July after being seen at Whitburn by Mark Newsome earlier in the afternoon is truly mind boggling, but see it we did for a whole 10 minutes as it weaved its way north. I wont hold my breath for its acceptance though! What it did for me though was encourage more seawatching from Cullernose Point, mostly without other observers for company and it was so good, I will be giving it even more coverage in 2020!

What did I dip? A bit painful this, but the Sooty Tern circled my seawatch spot while I was at work and I missed Jack Snipe and Long Eared Owl that Ben Steel had in off again while work got in the way.

My Local Patch.

Some notebook highlights from this year, not all on patch, but all in Northumberland.

May...

There goes spring...

For us in Northumberland it was quite dry but usually cold too. A few new birds were added to the patch list, but they were mostly expected summer visitors.

117 - Mandarin, a drake flushed from the pond in grim weather as I led a dawn chorus walk on the 4th.
118 / 119 - On the same afternoon a seawatch added Bonxie and Manx Shearwater to the list.
120 - was a singing Sedge Warbler on the 5th while the species continued to arrive in the afternoon with...
121 - Puffin, 5 N past our coast path,
122 - 23 Whimbrel and a
123 - Great Northern Diver also added to a reasonable spring seawatch.
124 - was a typically late Swift. They dont breed on patch so can be erratic in the spring.
125 -  House Martin was finally added on 16th when 3 birds flew S over the village.

So ending the month with 125 equalling 62.18% of the patch total overall.

What will June bring? To be honest I think I'll be lucky to add anything but there are possibilities. In May I missed two species. Jane had Cuckoo calling 3 times when I was away to work and another local had 3 Little Egrets roosting in our small heronry on one evening. Despite trying, both remained elusive for me. These two plus four tern species out there to get, I might just need a slice of luck...

I wonder how Steve in Surrey is coming along....

An unsuccessful morning looking fo Bluethroats but a lovely Bullfinch in the fog made up for it...a little. 

I'm late!

For an April round up that is.
As you may have read here before, Northumberland doesnt do spring like the southern counties. We often just slip from winter into summer...Still this April has been quite good on the patch with some decent birds...
Shelduck came first on 1st April and was species 103. A common and almost daily sighting here in spring with most bird being seen in flight.
104 was the Blackcap bang on cue on 5th...
105 on the same date Wheatear was early here, I dont usually get one til mid month.
Swallow was 106 on 10th...
and Sand Martin nearby was 107...
Willow warbler at 108 are getting later year on year, on 12th...
A nice Yellow Wagtail 109 on the muck heap was on 20th...
Whitethroat 110 was early on 24th often not arriving until May...
Lesser Whitethroat came the next day...111.
Sandwich Tern was added on 27th 112,
While a good day on 28th added Red legged Partridge, Grasshopper Warbler, Ring Ouzel and a full patch tick - Hooded Crow all at Craster taking the total up to 116.

The scores on the doors are.... 116 species = 56.58% of the total patch score.

Yellow Wagtail with a Pied on the muck heap.

Marching on...

Since the February summary one or two predicted list additions have appeared on site. My partner in crime from Surrey, Steve Gale is going great guns for an inland patch. Steve is running two patches, a big one and a more localised little'un. As I have the sea on hand, it is his 'Uber patch' that I am competeing with and at the end of March we are pretty much neck and neck.

I seem to have had a miss count somewhere with 103 species in my notebook but only 102 on a small checklist I am using. I'll have to go with the list rather than book as the notebook is just handwritten so I cant see where I've gone wrong. Anyway, it'll all balance out in the end I'm sure.

My new species for this month are Chiffchaff on 8th March, 2 days earlier than my previous patch first arrival, Lesser black backed Gull 1 on 17th over the village, still my only one this year, Canada Geese, 2 N along the coast path on 26th, Mediterranean Gull, a first summer with Black headeds on the plough on 28th.

102 species / 201 all time = 50.74%

Last sunrise of March 2019 on patch.

End of Winter Figures.

As the month of February draws to a close, its time to check the patch listing stats.

February is always the worst month for birding on my bit of coastline. I have mainly cleaned up on all wintering visitors and resdents by the end of January and spend February adding a few that were overlooked, and hoping for spring.

This month fitted the stereotype perfectly. The month came in like a lion and went out like a lamb, a phrase supposed to be associated with March but global warming has moved everything else forward  so why not the prose? A covering of snow and temps down to -7 during the first weekend added a quick flurry to the list with Fieldfare, Redwing, Water rail, Willow Tit, Peregrine, Meadow Pipit and Collared Dove. More Crossbills, Barn Owls and Pink footed Geese added to the interest.

From then on it was all down hill. On 10th a singing Siskin was species 97 then in the warm, spring like days of week three, Coot  98 and Whooper Swan 99 arrived on the 25th.

This 99 species gives me 49% of my all time patch total score.

What will be species 100 be in March I wonder? Lesser black backed Gull or Redpoll is likely to be followed by Chiffchaff later in the month. Maybe the sea will be the key to some extra additions with birds like grebes and divers or white winged gulls shuffling around from other sites. Or maybe the small pond will pull in a Pochard (unlikely!) or a Wigeon?

Who knows? It will take the second week of April to arrive before the ticking can begin in earnest...

Compare this result against my blogging colleague Steve Gale here...

Local Patch Listing

The Howick - Craster Patch.

Is there anyone out there? I'll rephrase that. Just because I haven't had a comment since about August, there's no need for sarcasm. What I meant to say was, is there anyone out there with a very poor local patch?

Its a funny thing to ask, but I see loads of people on social media the length and breadth of the country who's local patch is Spurn, Bardsey, Cley or where ever their county hotspot is. Most people have a nature reserve or a large inland water body, or a migration place where many sets of eyes scour it every weekend for the latest 'rare' but I only see a few people with a random place that very few birders visit. Steve Gale at ND&B has one such place here.

My patch is another. Before I lived here, I used to call in to the area occasionally, but only once did I come here to see a good bird - a juv Red backed Shrike found by Julie Roper about 12 years ago. Even the coast line facing east to the North Sea is quite mundane. It is a rocky shore with no areas for gatherings of birds. The landward side is just as bad, intensively worked, mixed farmland. It is scenic but not too bird friendly really.

It is this that makes it quite a task to keep to the patch when half an hour drive North takes me to Holy Island and another half an hour South takes in the ponds and wetlands of Druridge Bay or Newbiggin. But, I live here, so technically I can visit every single day, even if its just watching out of the window, so over the past 9 years I have stuck with it.

Maybe once a year, if I am lucky, is there a period of weather that makes even this place worth a look, and most often that involves Seawatching. Its the sort of activity that can put you on a level with some other places, at last. This weekend, proved to be my 2018 window of opportunity to add a few good species to the year list.

On Saturday and Sunday I spent 6.5 hrs, alone, glued to my scope and bins enjoying the conveyor belt of birds rattling through my mediocre patch. For once I felt like a contender!

My list looks like this -

All moving North unless otherwise stated.

Pale bellied Brent 3
Shelduck 32
Wigeon 760
Mallard 12
Teal 100
Shoveler 6 attached to scoter flocks of all things.
Pintail 3 a scarce patch bird
Long tailed Duck 51 best count ever on patch.
Goldeneye 22
Scaup 3 only 3rd record.
Tufted Duck 1
Common Scoter 1034
Velvet Scoter 33
Eider 50
Red breasted Merganser 13
Red throated Diver 50
Black throated Diver 2 a rare visitor.
Great Northern Diver 8
Slavonian Grebe 1 second patch record
Manx Shearwater 11
Fulmar 50
Little Auk 9
Bonxie 1
Pomarine Skua 1 distant but carrying the full spoons.
Purple Sandpiper 9
Glaucous Gull 1 fw right over our heads N.

Plus uncountable Gannets, Kittiwakes and Auks and a Short eared Owl and a few Starlings in-off right past me. Further south observers had Leaches Petrel ( one even on Howick patch per Ben Steele but I missed it along at Craster) double figures of Little Auks and Poms, but when sitting watching by yourself its easy to miss out.

I am not too concerned, after all I had a right old hatful of decent patch birds to boost the total but its high time some quality passerine action came my way. Fingers crossed.

 

Picking up...

After last nights meagre offerings of the pelagic kind, the wind got up overnight, so, I set the alarm to get me up early so I could catch an hour facing east before heading off to work.

I arrived at my seawatching spot at 6.00am and was in position and counting by 6.10. The wind was a moderate NNW5 decreasing, it was overcast with odd drizzly squalls coming in, reducing visibility.

Although it was no classic, there were clearly more birds on the move than yesterday. I watched until 7.15am, noting the following. -

Brent Geese 5N
Wigeon 39N
Teal 71N
Pintail 2N
Common Scoter 4N
Goosander 1N
Manx Shearwater 5N
Sooty Shearwater 1N
Puffin 1N
Red throated Diver 4N
Sandwich Tern 26N
Arctic Skua 2N

I put my gear back in the car and climbed in ready to drive off. It was now that I noticed a whirring sound? Hold on, I thought, that's the heating fan. I had only turned the ignition part way off, leaving the fan to nicely flatten the battery! Craster is not a good place to be stranded as there is no mobile phone signal at all due to the geology of the area. Luckily I caught the attention of a kind couple who let me into their home to use the land line.

To cut a long story short, after a bit of a faff, a mechanic from Alnwick ( that must be a Limerick somewhere) came to the rescue with a boost charger and had the car going in 10 seconds.

While he was gathering paperwork for me to sign, two birds caught my eye close in going north, lifting Kittiwakes all over - it was the 2 Arctic Skuas. First ones seen this year after a two month delay. I would have missed them if the car had worked properly :)


138. Sooty Shearwater
139. Pintail
140. Arctic Skua

These three patch additions leave my score at a clean 100% of last years total, so every new bird from now is a bonus. I wonder what will be next....?

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...

Good Friday Seawatch...

Buy a DSLR only to add a Toy camera effect filter! There is a cheaper option to this...

Just back from a couple of hours seawatching from the car at Craster. The weather today is really bleak, just as it should be for an Easter Bank Holiday weekend. I fancy that the moderate south easterly with rain might just drop in an odd bird or two but I'm not wandering about looking for it today. That job can wait til the weather improves.

The sitting-in-the-car-watching-the-sea bit was much more comfortable, but there was little on the move. The full totals are as follows -

Gannet 80 per hour
Kittiwake 35 per hour
Common Gull 7
Razorbill 3
Cormorant 3
Red breasted Merganser 1
Eider 5
Fulmar 10
Turnstone 1
Puffin 10
Common Scoter 1
Shag 1
Guillemot 7
Diver sp 1
Red throated Diver 1
Great black backed Gull 5
Whimbrel 1 probable but I fluffed getting a good view due to drinking tea and eating Easter Egg.

Highlight was a tiny Chiffchaff that just dropped from no where into a clump of dock and garden refuse. It flew off again after a minute. Migration is happening...

This afternoon we had a walk down to the pond after the rain had stopped. A loud metallic sounding call, very briefly, caught my attention. A scan around revealed the regular 6 Tufted Ducks a few Mallard, a Teal, 2 pairs of Little Grebe, the Mute Swans and then - a Coot! Nice one, Coot has only appeared in 4 out of 7 year lists here compared to Waxwing that has appeared on 5, and equalling both Twite and Yellow browed Warbler. A nice one to get on the team.  

104. Coot

Its wild out.....

Its a bit breezy out there. Today is the first time I've seen the patch in daylight since Tuesday, and remember, my house is in it. This makes the birding quite tricky, but never fear, slowly but surely the days will lengthen and before too long there may even be some birds to see after work.

The other night I was out filling some logs for the fire ( what a rural idyll eh!) when an angry hissing sound over head signalled the presence of a Barn Owl flying across the garden towards its hunting grounds. There are several pairs in this area so its not something to get too excited over, but always nice to see, its added to the year list. The following morning I had better views of a different bird, this time on Mr Cadwallenders patch at Hipsburn as it hunted the verges in the car headlights.

So, today has turned out bright and sunny but still blowing a cold gale interspersed with the odd awful, horizontal, rain squalls. A walk out with the dog still produced a couple of new additions though. In the back field, a nice flock of feeding birds consisted of 30+ Redwings, 10+ Mistle Thrush, 1 Fieldfare, 1 Song Thrush and a couple of Blackbirds, plus 100+ Linnets and a lone Skylark.

Down the lane, a cock Greenfinch flushed from below a bramble bush where it was feeding on the withered seeded fruits.

Tomorrow, weather permitting, I'll try and put a couple of hours in first thing...

64. Barn Owl 
65. Fieldfare
66. Skylark
67. Greenfinch.

A challenge...

After my post the other day saying I was planning what to do in 2015, Mr Gale of Surrey threw down a gauntlet. He suggested a friendly competition between us doing a birding patch list for the year. To make it fair, we have each set a base line - Steve has 110 species while I have 146. A percentage will be taken of any species over this total to decide the winner.

Our two local patches could scarcely be more different, his being an inland site in the south east while I am on the north east coast over 300 miles away.

I have already thought of a basic strategy to follow. Dont say owt, but here goes. If this info fell into the wrong hands it could be curtains for me.

In the new year it is a birders instinct to get out there and hammer his patch mopping up as many species as possible. I've done this myself many times and can get over 90 in the first month of the year, but I am taking a 'tortoise and hare' approach this time. During each month I am going to actively seek out the scarcer targets in my area, and hopefully the common stuff will fall into place naturally.

My first quarter goals are mainly all at sea- white winged gulls, divers, grebes, Long tailed Duck and Little Auk with Grey Plover, a biggie, out on those rocks. This is a common coastal wader here, but not on my patch. 2 miles south and I can get a flock of 40 no bother, but our rocky coast seems to repel them...and there is a tree in our village still laden with apples in case a scandinavian fop drops by.

Remember keep schtum.