Out of the Blue...

 September, as usual these days, has been dominated by southerly winds, that for us in Northumberland, aren't good for much. There has been no seawatching or decent migrant weather but it doesnt take a lot to shuffle the pack. Last week a short 2 day window of North then light East breezes, gave us an event that no one would have predicted under the conditions given.

Late Sunday morning last week Steve Egglestone posted a photo of a Pipit he had taken that morning at Trow Quarry, South Shields. We were all incredulous to see that it was a tiger striped Pechora! What? We havent had a Siberian blast yet this most sought after of Pipits made it through. I fancy it has come partially over the top on the north wind rather than from the east, but we can only speculate.

As I evaluated my twitching options in Morrisons at Alnwick at lunchtime, I pondered distance ( 90 miles round trip) how busy it might be and likelyhood of success. This equation came to 'You need to be in it to win it' so myself and John arrived at Trow Quarry bang on 3.30pm behind 50 other birders on site.

The prognosis wasnt good. Observers present for 3 hours only had flight glimpses from one area of long grass to another with an odd 5 seconds pause on a branch before dropping into the vegetation again. We soon became one of them. We had 5 short flight views. Once it was low and some stripes could be seen but it was essentially a quiet short tailed ground hugger that was beyond identification with these looks.  

As I watched the tight packed crowd surge from one end of the quarry to the other when the bird moved ( it wasnt flushed it just proved mobile), this was never going to work. After watching the bird's behaviour, I said to John one one of these jaunts the bird will drop down onto the bare ground below the trees rather than into a bank of metre high thistles as it seemed to prefer.

I decided to hang back from the crowd. I left my scope and tripod standing on the short turf so I could be more ready for the next flight when I planned to sit back and watch closely with bins rather than moving myself. Sure enough up it went, true to form then swooped up under a large sycamore. The crowD moved as one, I didnt, I just grilled the landing spot with bins. It was then I saw a quick flick of wings to the back of the tree, above some bare ground.

I looked back, my scope stood alone on the lawn while everyone else was now 30 yards away. I could see most were in a trance like state just following and gazing but not really looking. I lifted my bins again.

This time I couldnt believe my eyes. There, on the bare ground below the tree was a small nodding bird, striding around in the open. I called this info to the line up. As one, it seemed to kick each and everyone up the backside and soon I could hear camera shutters going off.

I grabbed my scope and became the tail end sheep in the pack. Through my scope great views were had of this tiny jungle/tundra dweller walking around like a....well it reminded me of Forest Wgtail in China or an Olive backed Pipit maybe. It then marched up right out on the the access track sloping up the hill. What a sight! I even let a couple of lads get a good scope view too...

I will add at this stage, several of my good Northumberland mates had already sickened and left the site maybe 15 minutes earlier! Sorry chaps....

Anyway after 10 mins it flew up again and went back to its old ways in the long grass, but not before everyone there got good views and the photos they wanted. Result.

I cant see it being beaten to Bird of the Year at this late stage... 

 

   

A flurry...

 ...of bird activity in recent days in the county.

First of all a Night Heron ( ok, Black crowned for goodness sake) was found at Marden Quarry Whitley Bay, while a Caspian Tern was briefly at East Chevington.

Ive only ever seen one Night Heron in the county and have never seen Caspian Tern here so I was on alert.

As I was at work, half the way to Whitley Bay yesterday I thought it was worth a lunchtime trip into the 'burbs' for the Heron. It was a doddle to get although it was mostly obscured as it roosted in a willow on an island in the pond. Still,it gave great scope views and did occasionally crawl about the bush a bit while yawning before nodding back off the sleep. I gave it an hour then left for work.

I had just got back to the office when news came of the Caspian Tern back at East Chev. Unfortunately I had a 4pm office appointment so couldnt get away til a bit later but intended to drop in on my way home. Its a very short detour.  Work finished at 5pm so I checked the WhatsApp messages. Bugger, the tern flew S at 4.30pm. Hey ho.

Back home, 14 miles N of East Chev and didnt the tern turn up at Cresswell then back at East Chevington again. After work and driving about a bit, I couldnt really be arsed with another 30 miles round trip only for it to fly off again while I was on route. I should have really as it remained at Chev until 8.14pm when it flew south.

Never mind, I might finish work a bit earlier today and go down to Chev on spec in case it comes back in at high tide...It has not been seen so far today...

Black crowned Night Heron, Marden Quarry, Whitley Bay.

 

A County First!

 Sitting at the computer in our small bedroom on Wednesday lunchtime last week, it was a busy work day. There were so many emails and calls that I rarely came up for air, so I hadn't checked my WhatsApp messages for a while when I finally picked the phone up. 

A short message seemed a bit confused followed with equally confused responses about a Lesser / Mongolian / Tibetan/ Siberian Sand Plover on the stony beach at Lynemouth with Ringed Plovers. Any of those would be a British tick for me and new for Northumberland but these had been followed with a single photo, that to me, initially, showed a longer bill, that would indicate Great Sand Plover. Not a new bird for me, but a County First all the same.

Now, had I been in the office, I would have been 10 minutes away, but from home its 40 mins and the bird had flown south.

Still the work came through apace so my intended early 3pm finish dragged on til after 5pm. 

By then the bird, now reidentified as a Greater Sand Plover had been relocated around the next headland at Beacon Point, Newbiggin, a pattern it would repeat going forward.

Visions of a lot of birders and toggers booting the plover up and down the coast made me decide not to go on Wednesday evening but just leave it, keeping my fingers crossed for the Thursday when I would be based just around the corner in Ashington. Hopefully it would linger, it is 'autumn' after all...

Thursday, early doors I see from my phone that the Greater Sand Plover was still present  but has again flown from its roost on Lynemouth beach towards Beacon Point again where it was being looked for. 

That would be my first port of call. The car was left on a nearby housing estate as near as possible to the site where a short march across the golf course put me with a group of a dozen or so hopefuls.

Soon enough, the bird was found on the rocky shore where it would do a pop up act by appearing then vanishing in equal measure. I gave it half an hour and decided to have a better look at high tide after work.

4pm found me at Lynemouth Power Station where a walk of about half a mile over a brownfield area got me to the blast beach where the birds were roosting. The industrial landscape here is more like Teesside than Northumberland but its a good spot for migrants and other wildlife too. 

At the spot there were only about 6 of us at the beginning and by the time I left I was alone. I was able to watch the bird well and at a nice distance, enough to stop them being anxious and close enough for good scope views. A few notes and sketches were made and some phone scoped photos taken as a record of the bird. 

Later on at home a scan of some literature showed a minefield of taxonomic issues with the Sand Plover complex but comparing my notes with details it looked to be of the Central Asian race 'scythicus' all the way from Turkmenistan through S Kazakhstan and Afghanistan wintering in SE Africa

An older paper in BB refers to the 'crassirostris' race ( now changed in name only to 'scythicus' )...

 Bill - As nominate, but on average somewhat longer and thinner.   ( It was slim and quite long)

Upperparts - Paler grey-brown, usually lacking rufous-cinnamon tinge, but may show narrow rufous feather margins. (It was heavily abraded so no rufous finging)

Face Mask - Wider and complete, with white forehead patch small or absent .( It was only a few small dots in a line)

 Breast Band -  Broader, less sharply demarcated and generally paler, but with narrow centre  and rufous often extending obscurely to flanks .

Border to Breast Band - Sometimes present as thin black line; often absent.  ( It had a faint black line along the edge to the throat).

So there you have it, my 2nd UK GSP after one at Aberlady in June 1999, takes my county list to 364 until the Redpolls go!

Note - 30/07/24 I see Bird Guides are putting this out as the Eastern race 'leschenaultii' so I've looked again to see where I'm going wrong. Ive coloured positives in green and negatives in red.

Bill - Strong, with curved nail and obvious, angled gonys ( Bill didnt seem strong or have a gonys?)

Upperparts - Usually ‘clean’ grey-brown, often lacking cinnamon tinge, and thus similar to Lesser Sand Plover, but may show narrow rufous margins. ( Yes like this)

Mask - Variable, but occasionally fully black ( Fits)

Breast Band - Narrow at centre and deeper rufous, hardly extending to lower breast or onto flanks; also more sharply demarcated ( Doesnt look sharply demarcated to me or particularly deeper rufous)

Border to breast band - Normally lacking ( Definitely had a fine line bordering)

As with all of these complex species, the descriptions or parts are fluid and extremely variable. No doubt the BirdGuides Team have access to more expert up to date info than myself...Every day is a school day!

Unbridled Joy...

Right, where was I...last post I mentioned something about a Bridled Tern....

Part I. Arriving on 1^st June, the resident seabird wardens on the island were amazed at its presence and soon put the word out. This is a bird of global equatorial distribution, so it would be more suited to the Caribbean, Indian Ocean or North coast of Australia than an outcrop of rock in the North Sea.

As Coquet Island is not a place where visitors can land, there were a couple of options available for those wanting to see the bird. 

From the mainland, most birders set up opposite the island at Hauxley Dunes small car park where, using a telescope, the bird’s favoured location was 1.41 kms ( 0.8 miles) over water or if looking from Boulmer 8.41 kms! In late afternoon light this was not too bad but in the morning into the sun it was more difficult. Adding to the problem was that it would head out to sea on fishing sorties for a few hours at a time leaving observers frustrated.

The alternative was to climb aboard one of the Puffin Cruise boats out of Amble that, on a high tide, could get in much closer to the bird.

My first attempt was on the Monday early evening. It was a fine day and I pulled into the car park to find around 8 people watching from the top of the dune. I gathered my scope and stool and found a good position to scan the island. The bird had been frequenting the tall stone steps and the solar panels area so at least it was possible get directions on to it, but on arrival the bird was away fishing. No one seemed to be really concentrating either so I hunkered down, screwed my eye into the eyepiece and waited. The ‘white’ Terns could be seen ok, so it was just a case of looking for a brown backed one to appear. Due to the number of birds flying around this was not as easy as it may seem and every odd angled flying Puffin caused me to pause and look again. There are an awful lot of Puffins!

Fifty minutes passed without a view, then a glimpse of something ‘different’ in the flying melee caused me to stop and take a breath. No, not a Puffin this time, there it was, the Bridled Tern in over the island and circling around the solar panels. Its long brown wings stood out and even the bright white sides to the tail could be seen when it was at the right angle. I gave a constant commentary until I was sure all others waiting could see it. When it landed it was no more than a speck, so better to see it flying around. It was on show for around 20 minutes and eventually went out of view in some grass. Success!

Impression of view from Mainland.

Part II. Although I had at least seen the bird, it all felt a bit unsatisfactory due to the distance involved. Luckily others felt the same, so a couple of friends had organised a full birders charter of a Puffin Cruise boat at 3pm on Tuesday 4^th June.

We arrived at Amble quay nice and early for our boat to hear the news that the previous two boat trips had not seen the tern. Those were standard, hour long Puffin Cruises. This time we had a longer time out there to just wait and see what happens. The bird usually appeared back on the island late afternoon or early evening presumably to roost?

Around 40+ intrepid sailors left the harbour onto a lightly lumpy sea and headed the short way over the sound. Luck was on our side. Even as we made our first approach, the call went up, ‘There it is!’. Sure enough the Bridled Tern was circling around with other terns in its usual spot. It made several attempts before finally landing on the bare bank side where we all managed great views for around half an hour. Now all of its features could be seen clearly and a lot of photos were taken.

Above Bridled Tern and tern twitchers.

Roseate Tern

Eventually it got up again, flew around a bit then headed SE out to sea again, not returning while we were there. We hung on another half an hour or more and enjoyed close Roseate Terns, Puffins, Grey Seals and even 3 Black tailed Godwits as the flew towards the mainland.

Northumberland has a good track record of attracting rare terns, and this bird is the county’s 6^th Bridled Tern since the first in 1988. For me, it is my 3^rd having seen birds at Hauxley in 1988 and 1989, making it a long 35 years since my last sighting. At the time of writing, the bird is still around and may spend the summer here. So, if you’ve not seen one, get on an afternoon Puffin Cruise and Good Luck!

Club Tropicana....

The bird was on that Red Buoy.

 After the run around on Wednesday, I was pleased to find that the Teesside Brown Booby was still hanging on down at South Gare, Redcar. To put this to bed once and for all I carried out that most heinous  of birding crimes and twitched it. In my car! How very dare.... but the 160 miles round trip was worth it and it turned out to be one of the easiest twitches I've done.

I met John at Alnwick Homebase at 6am and we headed on a traffic free A1 down to J60 at Sedgefield then a short run eastwards to arrive at our destination at 7.30am. The car was parked in a road side pull -in and as we got out and opened the boot to get the gear out, John said ' In the bag, let's away!' Eh?

'Aye its sitting over there' so I scanned with the bins and sure enough, at range the angular shape of the Booby could be seen sat atop the tall red buoy in the river mouth. Target ticked by 7.35am!

A short wander across the road with the scopes and an hour observation gave nice, if a little distant, views. The bird preened a while before being shook from its perch by the wake of a large ship passing by. It then flew around, chased by a few gulls where its small size could be seen. It then joined a gull / auk feeding frenzy to feed. The method was quite unexpected. I imagined it would plummet in like a Gannet but no, it sat on the calm surface and dipped its head down like a dabbling duck or maybe a pelican, before lifting up with a mouthful of fry.   

Some field sketches were put in the book and a few digi phone scoped shots for later. 

A few other birds passed the time too with a nice morning lit Peregrine low over, 2 Arctic Skuas, 1 Yellow Wagtails S and 1 Redpoll S. 

We left at 9.30am arriving back home at 11am. Excellent timing as we both had family commitments in the afternoon.

Brown Booby #428 BOU.

Field sketches, coloured when back home.

Worked up sketch for my neater notes.

Boobycarnage!

 This morning before leaving work to go into the office a local WhatsApp message popped up - 

Brown Booby, North, Long Nab, Scarborough.

This is a message that causes a basic life pause, just for a second while the info is mentally processed.

Then its reported very close in past Cowbar in Cleveland.

Clearly this is the bird that has spent a couple of days off Filey, so, what chance that it is actually on the move and not just circling around in the sea haa looking for a nice feeding frenzy to join in with?

Just in case, you understand, not that the chance would arise, and yes I am remaining cool, it might be worth checking timescales.

Long Nab to Cowbar took 1 hr 15 mins for 36 miles.

Cowbar to Newbiggin in Northumberland, only 2 miles from my office is 75 miles. By counting fingers and toes I can deduce from this that the tropical Sula could be due in around 11.30am.  

No, I'm still not too bothered, chances are it will be back in Filey before I get in to work.

Fast forward and I am in the office at 10am and logged on.

A message banner pops up on my phone. Brown Booby past Hartlepool Headland, very close in...

Shit is getting real, this could be on the cards.

A humorous and hasty conversation with colleagues and manager about 'weh hey' Brown Boobies ( insert emoji) and I cant hold on much longer, I'm off to Newbiggin arriving at 10.50am.

Already there are 20 people eagerly concentrating and grilling the rolling calm waves into the mist. The good thing about these type of twitches is that we can meet up with good friends we don't see so often, so its always going to be a win. 

The tension is palpable. Each juv Gannet gets a sigh as it passes. The concentration is broken briefly when a Black Guillemot flies through my scope and on to several peoples county and year lists.

'Cullercoats Brown Booby North towards Seaton Sluice'.

That is almost in sight! Come on...

After a few minutes there begins to be some coughing and fidgeting in the now 35 strong crowd. The rumour mill is grinding. Word has it, that it has not been seen at Whitburn a seawatching mecca. But there are close in immature Gannets. Then one observer says that the sighting at Hartlepool was believed by some ( always a good one) to be a Gannet too.

The observers at Cullercoats chip in that it might not have been a Booby?

It turns out there are NO confirmed sightings North of Cleveland.

Ah well its been a pleasant two hours and I am back in the office at 12.45.

Things should have ended there, but no, life is never that easy, is it.

Gary Woodburn calls. After all the earlier confusion, conspiracy and string, the real deal has just gone past Whitburn! Could you believe it. Right, one last ditch attempt sees me back at Newbiggin for 1pm but I need to be back by 2pm.

I needn't have worried, as I got out of the car Gary messaged to say 'Stand Down, the Whitburn sighting is erroneous too!'

Whats going on here. Looks like another young Gannet is responsible.

While standing discussing this with those who about turned back to the point, we had a close in very dark Balearic Shearwater, a Bonxie and a few Manx and Red throated Divers.

Balearic Shearwater courtesy of Paul Weddle.

30 minutes passes, time to call it a day. While there had been several Boobies this morning there was no Brown Booby for Stew.

As we left, a photo came through of the cracking adult Sula leucogaster now loitering off South Gare. Looks like it has never passed Cleveland after all...

  

Northumberland scores the big one!

 At a risk of slipping into full blown twitching vernacular, but, some birds deserve it!

This morning, Gary Woodburn was on patch counting an arrival of Hooded Crows. He had passed the Low Newton scrapes in one direction and was on his way back up on the return walk when he struck not only Patch Gold, but also County, UK and Western Palearctic Gold too with the most preposterous of  MEGAs. Britain's first GREY-HEADED LAPWING non the less.

Grey-headed Lapwing, Low Newton, Northumberland.

When the first message arrived in our WhatsApp group, time seemed to pause briefly. I could almost hear the rest of the Northumberland WhatsApp Group members thinking, 'A what?' 

This is not a species we have ever seen on the bird info services or in our magazines, so whilst I had heard of them, I had no idea of the range or likelihood of vagrancy so did a quick bit of Googling.

The oracle 'Wiki' gave me  - 

'The grey-headed lapwing (Vanellus cinereus) is a lapwing species which breeds in northeast China and Japan. The mainland population winters in northern Southeast Asia from northeastern India to Cambodia. The Japanese population winters, at least partially, in southern Honshū.

This species has occurred as a vagrant in Russia, the Philippines, Indonesia, New South Wales, Australia and Sri Lanka.^[1]'

Then, in a more European context, birds were seen in Turkey in 2018, Norway and Sweden in 2019 and it has been mooted a potential vagrant to the UK.

Dutch Birding magazine reported, when discussing the 2019 bird, that there were none or very few  birds in captivity to make escape potential an issue.

As is the way on Bank Holidays, there are always family commitments to fulfill so it wasn't until mid afternoon before I could dash the six miles from home where I was relieved to find the bird quite comfortable, feeding and wandering around the meadow as if it had been born there. Good scope views were had but it was always a bit distant for my photography.

Grey headed Lapwing all the way from  the Orient arrives at Low Newton, Northumberland.

It appeared as if the whole of the UK birding community was descending on Low Newton and as time went on those from further ranges began to arrive. Somerset, Wales, Norfolk, Herts, Staffs, Scotland etc all converged in this small village for a view of this Eastern Peewit, hopefully a British 'First'.

I manged a few in the field scribbles to get some shapes and feeling down, so will colour them up and elaborate them soon. In the meantime, here's a little shaky video...

 

The return of the Mollymawk...

Dear reader, you might recall that last July we paid a visit to RSPB Bempton Cliffs near Filey to see the Black browed Albatross that spent the summer there. Unfortunately for us it was away that day leaving us to stand for 11 hours albatross-less. 

Being a reluctant twitcher at best, although the bird returned to the great white cape and lived there on and off til September, I couldn't face the thought of another journey ending in a blank. A bit like the bad luck that befell the Ancient Mariner in the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem I was doomed to failure.

Still, that autumn I had hopes that it would return to its favoured face in 2022 when, if I had recovered from defeat, then I would pull out all stops to see it. 

Zip forward several months to earlier this week, much earlier than anticipated, the Albatross had returned to its cliff.

Time to get get back on the horse so to speak...

Bempton Cliffs RSPB. Thousands of seabirds nest here, but it was only one that brought us back today.

We arrived in the car park around 08.30 on a lovely bright, calm and cold morning. A short walk to the cliffs where some birders had gathered.

'Any news?' I asked. 'Its flown out to sea earlier' was the response.

You would think the clouds had closed above us. Gutted. Another long day lay ahead...

Or did it?

Heads down we strolled down to wards the view point. About half a mile offshore I could see some Gannets circling and landing on the sea so I thought Id scan with the bins. Straight away, there was the big stiff winged cross shape of the Black browed Albatross!  In a bit of a panic to get John on to it before it headed for the horizon some garbled directions such as 'There! There!' were given. It seemed to work as John quickly got on to it.

We need not have worried. The bird casually flew back in to the cliffs where it gave some great views flying around the Gannet colony for the next 45 minutes or so before retiring to rest on the cliff out of sight. We tried again after breakfast but it was a no show. A few birders arrived later and did not see it at all.  We knew how it felt.

Still, nothing could top the views we had. Our day was already made... 

 

Black browed Albatross.

[ PS. Mollymawk is the name for the group of medium sized albatrosses such as Black browed, an American term I think?]

  

Gone off with a bang...

08/11/21 Note - Please click on the comments at the bottom of this post. A resident of Newstead has contacted to complain of obstructions and dangerous parking. Please ensure you park safely and legally without obstruction well away from the farm and its entrances. Thanks. 

 At the very tail end of autumn, November can still be a good month for rare and scarce in Northumberland. No sooner had October fizzled out like a damp banger, November came raging in with a raft of good birds, all in the far north of the county.

Due to work I didn't have time to visit the Richards Pipit at Low Newton, or the Great Shearwater, Bonaparte's Gull, 4 Grey Phalaropes and Black Guillemot at Stag Rocks, but I did manage to clock off early on Monday for a 12 mile dash up the A1 for my 3rd Wilson's Phalarope at Newstead Flash.

What a delightful bird it was too, as are all phalaropes, it made us dizzy with its constant spinning like a Waltzer on the choppy surface of the pond. Distant for photos, it was good in the scope where it could be seen snatching insects from the surface. 

I had never heard of this water feature before this morning so Mike Hodgson did well in passing it then finding a great little bird like this on it. It made me think, along with that stunning Eye browed Thrush in the highlands, how many good birds drop in to anonymous spots and are never seen? Must be a few, but its just a lottery finding one. Literally a 'needle in a haystack' scenario, but its things like this that should keep diligent patch workers spirits up.

 

Its been a long, long day...

 Do you keep a bird list? If you do, what does it really mean to you? Is it an integral, important part of your birding? I think most of us who are observers of natural history keep lists in one form or another, from the rabid down-tools-and-go-for everything twitcher to the garden moth trapper we all like a new list addition. For those who say, 'I don't', 'Lists are a trivial waste of time, you should be doing something more important and stern like survey work, ringing, constant effort monitoring, local patching' etc  what do you do?

I keep several lists. For birds, I have UK, County, Local Patch. For Moths I have UK and Garden, same for Butterflies. I have a dragonfly list, a wild flower list and a fish list. I do like them and enjoy adding to them but if there was a Top 10 of my lists, the long staying number one, the equivalent to a Bryan Adams single would be my Northumberland Bird list.  The County List. 

Periodically though my UK list becomes an itch that needs to be scratched. I am fickle in this regard. For example, a Moltoni's Warbler would not get me out of the county. It doesn't even have  a piece in my 1972 Heinzel, Fitter and Parslow. The same goes for a lot of these new 'splits'. They just don't have the background of birding history and lore that say, the Anglesey Black Lark, the Aberdeen Belted Kingfisher or even the StAbbs Marmora's Warbler had.  I like my travelled for birds to come with some provenance, like a fine antique.

In the 80's a Black browed Albatross lived every summer on the northern most tip of the northern most island in the UK, Unst. This is way beyond my travelling distance even if I had known about it in the dark ages before WhatsApp, but tales of travelers intrepid enough to go to extremes to see this bird were gripping. 

In recent years, there have been tantalising temptations of Albatrosses in the UK, even in my own county, but none really getable for the likes of me. That is not until two weeks ago when the Bempton Cliffs bird of last years brief stay returned. In previous summers it has stayed across the North sea, but now it seems to enjoy the company of Gannets on the great white cape of Yorkshires East Riding, having spent a fitful two weeks on site giving views down to knock- your-cap-off range.

Tied at home due to work and builders in my loft, we were late to the party. On top of that, we also have a guilt trip where the Twittersphere is quick to vilify anyone who travels anywhere other than by bike. Its ok for Richard Branson to go to the moon or for 30,000 fans to drive to a football match every weekend but if you dare twitch a bird, on your head be it. You alone have destroyed this planet with your petty trivialities.

How would I react to that? I have no kids, so I am not instantly doubling up or more on resource use , I have not eaten any meat for 30+ years, I have only flown on a handful of occasions in my life, my partner Jane has never flown, so I think, if I want to drive all day occasionally in my diesel motor I will!

I transgress. On Monday John  and myself made plans to go for the Albatross on Friday, our earliest possible free day. As it happened, no sooner were plans made, the Mollymawk buggered off, we thought for good, so that was that. Friday came, I was finishing up on chores after the builders and didnt see my phone until later. The Albatross had only returned to the cliffs hadn't it, but I was too late to go on the day so, Saturday was selected for the trip.  

We left Alnwick at 5.30am arriving at Bempton 3 hours later to news that the bird was last seen heading towards the horizon at 7am. Looked like we would have to wait. And wait. And wait.

11 hours later, the site and sounds and smells of a magnificent seabird colony were beginning to wane. At 7pm with no sign of the bird, we called it a day. Albatross 1 Northern Albatross Twitchers 0. I can almost hear the laughs from the enlightened few saying 'You get what you deserve you destroyer of worlds'. At one time a full day dip would have left me gutted, but now, not so much. Disappointed yes, but no more than that. There are more important things after all. I would like to see it tracked up the coast from Whitburn one day, now that would be special.

24 hours later, this afternoon, I was looking at some photos I took of the Gannets when word comes out, the Black browed Albatross was back on its favoured cliff ledge at Bempton. You know, I think it knew we had been watching and waited for us to leave...here's to 2022...

Bempton Big Cliffs

The number of birds on show is dizzying.

Gannets

Click here to see layers of albatross dippers.