The Darkness

Now that we are back at work after the busy Christmas holidays, local wildlife time is resitricted again due to the length of daylight hours. It is total darkness on the morning terrier perambulation and its even darker when I come in at night! One morning this week I was a little bit later away and caught up with Brambling and Mistle Thrush in the village as patch list additions for 2019.

This weekend has been a mix of dull to bright and calm to breezy but dry throughout. Often mild too. Snowdrops are now bursting out in the village wood and I saw a few Winter Aconites open at Denwick last weekend. Its all moving in the right direction. Looking forward to light nights is a bit like wishing life away, and I dont mind winter if only I had more time at home to enjoy it!

Today I met with John and we stayed quite local visiting the Coquet Estuary, Amble Harbour and Seaton Point, Boulmer. The fist two were very quiet with nothing going into the notebook but, as usual, Boulmer always has something to look at.

As we walked along the shore from Seaton Point, an adult male Peregrine strafed the tideline seeming revelling in the strong wind and headed south to Foxton. We later saw his return sortie across Boulmer Haven lifting all the shorebirds and gulls on his way.

Sheltered on the east facing beach, a lot of weed held half a dozen Rock Pipits of both petrosus and littoralis races, 1 Meadow Pipit and the wintering Water Pipit. A male Stonechat was on the dune edge as we passed.

Both images above viewing south from Seaton Point. The waves being blown backwards in the strong wind!

A distant record of the Water Pipit at Seaton Point.

   As we rounded Seaton Point, numbers of people increased causing some disturbance to the birds. Fortunately the tide was dropping back quickly so the birds will have been able to feed largely out of reach of all but the most determined of anglers on the rock edges.

We had 18+ Bar-tailed Godwit, 13+ Ringed Plover, 80+ Dunlin, 3 Purple Sandpipers and 15 Sanderling clamering for morsels in the waves.

Bar-tailed Godwits on the shore.

  Back home this afternoon I took a walk down to the pond field with Peggy to see if the wind had shuffled some wildfowl onto the water. I didnt have high hopes so left the camera at home. A decision I regretted later when I found a nice drake Gadwall on the pool feeding quite close in without concern. Gadwall is a scarce bird for the patch only being recorded in 6 out of the last 10 years and these are only singles usually in late summer or early autumn.   

I might have a few days off work into February just to tide over until the longer days of March....

Pipits on the beach.

Boulmer Beach, just along from Seaton Point.

A day off work using up annual leave, so as it was a nice day, I popped down to Seaton Point to scan the pipits on the bank of rotting seaweed. There were at least 30 birds present, but were mostly flighty so impossible to get an accurate number. I plonked myself down and started snapping away. This is what I found...

Littoralis 1

Littoralis 1 as above.

Littoralis 2.

The majority of birds present were Scandinavian Rock Pipits, Anthus spinoletta littoralis. They were in varying states of moult though none were advanced enough to show the very pinky breast and clean grey head.

The ones above, look more like British Rock Pipit, Anthus spinoletta petrosus but could possibly be littoralis too.

The four images above are all of the same bird, Water Pipit, Anthus spinoletta spinoletta. This might be the bird we had here before Christmas? It shows a lot of yellow on the bill, pinkish legs and a very clean white under parts. There is the large dark malar patch ( side of neck) and pale brownish grey upper parts.

  Then we have these -

The two above are of the same individual. It has that sandy brown, meadow pipit look to it with a lot of yellow in the bill. Could it be a second Water Pipit? Its scruffy appearance probably means its another moulting littoralis... 

And this thing, I have no idea...Its a Rock Pipit.

Maybe the whole lot are just Rock Pipits? This is just my interpretation of them. The sooner these are all lumped back to one species the better!

Back to Boulmer....

For a change, this morning John and I met up at Seaton Point, Boulmer with the intention to walk around the headland, checking the sea and shore line for, maybe, divers or snow buntings or something like that.

It was bitterly cold, with a thick white frost and a light NW wind that numbed the fingers. As I waited for John, a quick scan seawards revealed a Great Northern Diver heading N and a diver calling on the sea that sounded like a Red throat but I couldn't see it.

Soon, John arrived and after exchanging pleasantries and commenting on how baltic it was, we headed off down the Seaton Point steps to the shore. Well, that was the intention. From the top of the steps I lifted my bins in the dawn light to check the seaweed washed up on the tideline and the first bird I saw was a pipit with a very white belly. I commented that this looked like a Water Pipit and checked with the scope, expecting it to be either a Meadow or maybe a littoralis Rock Pipit.

What a surprise when the bird I focussed on was as suspected, a nice winter plumaged Water Pipit.

'Spinoletta' is not a common bird in North Northumberland, though I have seen one at this very spot a good few years back that flew off inland minutes after my sighting. Hopefully this one would be different.

Out on the weed were up to 20 Rock Pipits including several littoralis types and a scattering of Meadow Pipits. Mix this lot with a dozen Pied Wagtails, 2 Grey Wagtails and a few Robins that kept flighting up and down the beach, and our bird was proving tricky to get to grips with. In fact, the next two hours was spent trying to get a decent close view.

As the morning became brighter we eventually managed to get some excellent scope views to clinch the required features and even a few ropy record shots ( I think John has done a lot better than me...).

Water Pipit

Water Pipit(right) witha typical 'petrosus' Rock Pipit. 

Water Pipit, the whitish supercillium would be more obvious in some views than in others.

John trying to get some photo's of the Water Pipit.  

From here we drove into Boulmer and walked around Longhoughton Steel that was largely bird free other than a few Linnets and 2 Red throated Divers S offshore.

Oh well, it only takes one bird and bit of excitement to make the day!