Low Newton & Long Nanny, 7th Nov 2009

This morning it felt like the autumn was over and the winter was here.....

Now I'm trying not to be negative, I know some great scarcities can show up in November, just need a bit of weather to help things along...... a humes, a desert wheatear or rough leg, any of these would do nicely !!

Today tho it was cold and wintery.....a steady stream of Pinkfeet flying south provided a great spectacle, about 1,200 birds in an hour this morning......

My first stop today was the beach at Low Newton..... I spent about an hour grilling about 20 odd rock pipits..... Why ?..... Well, someone reported a water pipit here on Monday apparently..... and water pipit would be a very nice patch tick...... but today it wasn't to be..... oh well I'm sure it'll come one day....

On the beach at Low Newton the usual wintering waders included 7 barwits and 2 dunlin....

Next to Low Newton, and the flood is back !!..... yep the Low Newton flood has re-appeared (about 3 months too late for my liking tho), and today it was full of honkin greylags an 8 redshank....

Honkers...

Down at Newton Pool, a grilling of the scrub produced just 1 female blackcap and a siskin ! I spent 10 minutes trying to gauge the iris colour of the blackcap (after recently learning that iris colour can be used to age these birds apparently), but it was impossible, they just look dark ! Not sure this is a feature that can be reliably used in the field unless you have excellent views, and even so, with good views I'd be looking for tail shape, its easier !

After 10 minutes failing on the blackcap/iris mission I decided life was too short and moved on to the pool....... but next autumn when I get some blackcaps in my grubby mitts I'll remember to take some close up pics of the iris colour to compare 1st year and adult birds.

The "fen" between the willows and the hide at Newton Pool has been cut by the Trust and is now flooded, creating a nice bit of habitat.... a noisy water rail here soon put in a brief appearance legging it along the open edge.... then around at the pool I heard another 2 water rails calling....

Not been to the pool for a while because of its frustratingly high water levels..... I figured its almost winter now tho, so time to look for wildfowl.... Today the pool hosted 1 male scaup, 1 goldeneye, 2 gadwall and 117 teal.....

Back to Low Newton village and I was stopped in my tracks by a hirundine flying over the village... I lifted my bins praying for a red rumped swallow, I got a house martin..... but wait.... it was flying directly towards me, could it be a tree swallow ?!..... Then it banked to show me its big white arse....... Hmmmmm......I felt dissapointed...... then thought about it, a house martin on the 7th November is my latest ever on the patch, and second latest in Britain....

I checked the walled garden at Low Newton where another female blackcap was the only bird of note....

Mid afternoon I headed up to the Long Nanny..... one of the fields here was flooded and contained 27 whooper swans....

Whoopers at the Links...

Down at the Nanny it was all quiet, just 2 twite and 1 linnet on the saltmarsh, and a large gathering of gulls (mainly common gulls) on the shore....

Aren't gulls BRILLIANT !!...

Finally, while I was grilling the gulls (....nothing of note by the way !) a flock of 5 siskin flew in off the sea....

Long Nanny, Tin Church & Low Newton, 31st Oct 2009

It was a cracking morning today and the weather looked pretty shite for tomorrow, so I decided on an early start and a march up to the Nanny to beat the dog walkers/horse riders etc....

Of note was a lack of waders, just 8 redshank, 39 ringed plovers and zero curlew....

On the saltmarsh there was an amazing 172 twite......plus 6 snow buntings and 41 linnets..... also a female merlin batting about the place.....

Snobs.....

Twite (...and a linnet)

In Beadnell Bay there was 19 common scoter, 5 red throated divers, 2 mergs, and 5 goldeneye......

On the shore there was a gathering of around 2000 gulls, including a lot of herring gulls..... I could see dog walkers coming from both directions, so the race was on to scan through them all before they were flushed........ the results of my gull grilling was nothing unusual ! I did notice an adult herring gull wearing an orange darvic, I tried for a pic, but the dog walkers got there first and flushed the lot...... BOLLOX !

Large gull roost with Beadnell in the background...

Gulls....

On the walk back to the car park there were 7 stonechats lurking in the dunes and a couple of small flocks of reed buntings......

Stonechat....

Next I decided to kick around some cover...... I gave a few favourite places a good floggin..... High Newton, Tin Church and Newton Pool...... Nothing of great note to report.... All of last weeks birds seem to have moved on, but there were still large numbers of thrushes, particularly blackbirds.....

1st winter male blackbird at the Tin Church... note the unmoulted brown greater coverts....

At the Tin Church a grey wagtail was in the horse field, and a large numbers of blackbirds included 6 redwings and a couple of song thrushes..... There was also a kingfisher here on the new pond at Quarry House....

Down at the pool there wasn't a sniff of a firecrest.... in fact today I have seen no goldcrests, chiffs or blackcaps either......

On the shore at Low Newton a mixed flock of the usual waders showed well.....

Waders.... how many species can you see here ?...... You can click on the picture to enlarge it...

Throughout the morning I noted a number of small pinkfeet flocks, no snow goose lurking amongst them, but about 420 geese in 5 flocks, 4 flocks south and 1 north......

Siberian Chiffchaff calling.....

Here's a short clip of a sibe chiff from the weekend just before release.... captured on film calling....

Thanks to Bob for supplying this vid.....

Low Newton & Long Nanny, 25th Oct 2009

A cracking sunrise at Low Newton this morning....

The weather forecast was for a windy day, no good for my ringing site....... but Newton Pool is a bit more sheltered and the ringing group ring there on Sundays.....

Knowing the firecrests and "siberian" chiff/chiffs were about I figured there was a fair chance they would at least get a firecrest, so I invited myself along to see !

This proved to be a good move, today they caught 3 firecrests and 2 sibe chiffs......

Firecrests...

Sibe chiff....

As with my bird the other week, the "siberian" chiffchaff above called in the hand..... which was nice !

While we were ringing small parties of redpolls kept flying south, probably 7-8 groups totalling 70+ birds, also a couple of siskin flocks too....

I left the ringing group at 11am and headed up to the Tin Church, it was really windswept here and 2 goldcrests was all I could manage..... So, I decided to head to the Long Nanny instead...

At the shit pit there was a small gathering of thrushes, 4 song thrushes, 2 blackbirds and 2 mistle thrushes.....

Up at the Nanny the usual 100+ curlew were roosting with a few redshanks dotted amongst them.....

On the shore a small gull roost included this lesser blackback....

LBB...

A quick walk around the shore revealed 44 twite and 3 snow buntings....

Snow bunt...

Twite...

On the walk back to Newton Links a flash of white got me fired for a rare wheatear....... Hmmmm........ it wasn't to be...

Northern wheatear....

Well I've had 4 days of birding and lots of firecrest action, but its back to work tomorrow.... what a bummer.... 8(

looks like the winds have gone back west for a bit too..... I hope that's not it for the autumn..... would be good to pull a late pallas's or hume's YBW out of the bag.... or the net !

Low Newton, Newton Point & Tin Church, 24th Oct 2009

Today it was apparent from the start that the weather would be a pain in the arse !

Howling south easterlies and rain sounds good, but the reality is, in such strong winds its difficult to find a sheltered corner for birds or birding..... Today I got seriously windswept, and very wet too..... the results were poor.....

At Newton Pool the 4 firecrests were still hanging on, and also one of them chiffs that looks a bit sibe..... also 1 male blackcap and a standard chiff here....

The walled garden at Low Newton was too windswept for anything so I gave up....

At Newton Point there was a knackered looking redwing on the rocks...... and in the compound a fleeting glimpse of a brown thing that appeared to have a decent supercilium had me fired up..... could it be that grounded radde's I dream about ?...... Could it bollox !!...... A wren appeared and dashed my hopes,..... mind you, I have never seen a wren in here before....

At the Tin Church I got 2 goldcrests a male blackcap and a woodcock.....

At High Newton I had nuffin...... mainly because I couldn't even be bothered to look, it was horizontal rain and I was piss wet through !!

Well lets hope the foul weather grounded more than just that redwing..... think the weather may be a little bit better tomorrow (and by that I mean not raining and not gale force winds) , so I might get out and have another look around....

Tin Church & Low Newton, 23rd Oct 2009

To get over the shock of seeing that EASTERN CROWNED WARBLER in the morning, I decided to head to Newton and see if anything new was in..... still praying for the Pallas's God to drop one on me !!

At the Tin Church there was no sign of Mr Firecrest, but a nice redstart was flitting about the place, 1 chiffchaff, 2 blackcaps (male and female) and 3 goldcrests...

Down to the walled garden and 1 firecrest was here, but on closer inspection it was a male sporting a shiny new looking ring..... could this be the bird I ringed yesterday thats relocated ? I suspect so, yesterday the two firecrests here were unringed...

A quick look on the shore produced 2 barwits and a purple sand.... then off to the pool.....

At the pool the firecrests are forming a little flock.... an amazing 4 birds together !!

Todays effort at a firecrest pic.... these things are impossible to photograph... too mobile and too many leaves on the trees...etc...etc... !!

Also at the pool were 2 "siberian looking" chiffchaffs, these birds were quite frustrating, they both looked identical, and I heard one calling a couple of times when I was watching the firecrests, but I never actually saw them call...... So, one of these birds at least has got the right call, and I suspect they are both sibe chiffs, but without witnessing them call I'd better just say "at least 1" siberian chiffchaff.....

The pictures below are quite interesting, they are of the same bird, but show how light conditions can make things look quite different.... it looks brown in a couple and greyer in the other..... In reality this bird was brown grey with white underparts

"Possible" siberian chiffchaff

And I've included the crap pic below because it shows a gently contrasting more olivey rump....

ARSE !!

Also at the pool were a male blackcap and 2 goldcrests..... There were no bramblings today, but plenty of goldfinches on the move.......

Goldfinch

TWITCH !!

Last night I had good intentions of getting up early and going ringing......

It was about 10 o'clock at night and I glanced down at my pager to see the words "MEGA ALERT".....I scrolled down the message to see........

Co Durham - EASTERN CROWNED WARBLER

WHAT THE FU......????.... Have I lost my marbles ? I read it again... it didn't say "pallas's grasshopper"... and it didn't say "Scilly" ! Nope, it really said EASTERN CROWNED and CO DURHAM

HOLY SHIT !!

I spilt the beer in my lap as I reached for the phone, and with a soaking wet crotch I called Mark Newsome (no comments please). Mark knows everything there is to know about birds in Co Durham and I was sure I'd get some more info..... as it happened I ended up getting it from the horses mouth so to speak.....

Mark told me he was surfing a local forum on turdforum when he came across a picture some geezer had taken earlier in the day labelled "yellow browed warbler"..... Mark clicked on the thumbnail to enlarge it, and as it opened up he was presented with a cracking pic of an eastern crowned warbler !! Imagine that !!

Having heard this amazing tale, I said goodbye to Mark and went off to change my underwear......

So...... First thing this morning I was not at Newton.... I was at a small quarry in Co Durham with a load of other nutters !! It didn't take long for the bird to be located and we were treated to some really excellent views....... what an absolute spunkdrainer !!

Here is the pic of the yellow brow that caused all the fuss......

PHOOAAAR !!

.... and here's my effort from this morning.....

If you squint and use your imagination you can probably see something..... maybe a twig....

I am obviously shit at taking bird photos, so I took one of the crowd of nutters admiring the eastern crowned instead....

Oi !! You NUTTERS !!