BFTE II

Just when we thought winter had gone out with a bang, it seems to be one of those prog rocking winters with an ending that goes on way beyond the allotted time span.

Yesterday and Today have been about as far from spring as you are likely to get in mid March with 50mph winds, freezing temps and a steady stream of snow blizzards.

Still, I popped out this morning checking the coast at Boulmer and Craster but there werent too many birds about.

At Boulmer, the mere has flooded half the field. A nice Lesser black backed Gull was the only spring arrival here amongst 80+ Curlew, 20+ Golden Plover, 38 Bar tailed Godwits and a Peregrine fly by.

Up at Craster, many hundred of gulls feeding in the frothing surf still failed to turn up any thing out of the ordinary though there were 500+ Black headeds, 50+ Herring, 50+ Common, 6+ Great black backed Gulls and a Kittiwake. A few Gannets ploughed into the wind, moving south, my first of the year.

We found our third dead, emaciated, Song Thrush in the village this morning. Three in about 2 weeks. This one had nothing left on its bones, just a wisp of skin and feather. The sooner 'the beast' is forced back east, the better.

The Swallows will be back in 4 weeks...

Wetter late than never....

Craster Harbour the other day...

Happy New Year all, long time no see. There is a reason for this though. We have been without internet since 28th December, it only coming back on today as if by magic, without an engineer or anything, just a manifestation in blue light on the router.

No more ado, my blood boils just thinking about the customer service given by BT, so lets not mention them again.

Much better to start with a finish to 2015. I was going to do the bloggers standard summary of the last years highlights but that candle has fizzled now so here's an update.

For the Patchwork Challenge and my friendly competition with Mr Gale of Banstead the end total is a respectable 151 species for 191 points, nicely clinching back a forgotten Sibe Chiff (oh that's only a PWC rule, so for you Steve the year closed on 150) from November.

Time for it all to start over for 2016. This coming year I have a couple of plans to look forward to - continuing with the patch birding, I am enjoying it more than ever since I am taking it casually. Accompanying my friend John on his first dip into the PWC down at the Coquet Estuary where I can enjoy a new set of species that can be tricky on my own patch ie waders and lastly, later in the spring John and myself will be making our first foray across the Atlantic with another 5 friends to catch up with some Nearctic warbler migration.

In between these main features there will be more ventures into moths and butterflies, plants and mammals or anything else that takes the fancy. I will be keeping my notebook tidy with a few more sketches and trying to get some better photographs.

And that's me really, a man of simple pleasures!

What, may you ask, has 2016 given me so far? Well, I have to say, rain. And gales, and even more rain. New Years day was ok, but every day since has been grim, dark, wet and windy to a backing track of booming, pounding, headache inducing waves against the cliffs.

The Howick bird list is a bit lower than at this stage last year, but it is early days. My first highlight of the year came as a surprise on the 1st when a lovely adult Little Gull fed in a village field with black headed gulls. It did a short circular flight low over our heads to show of the pale rounded wing tips against the sooty wing linings. This is a scarce bird here with only a few occurrences maybe every other year always on seawatches. It was nice to get a land bound one.

Speaking of seawatching, I have dabbled against the elements seeing very little except up to 3 more Little Gulls together at Craster and 2 Little Auks blasted North with a wind up their tail.

PWC 2016 61 sp.

I dont fancy a dip in there....