High Newton & Long Nanny, 29th Dec 2009

OI !!!.... YOU GREEDY FAT COW !!....

One of the lovely ladies grazing the dunes today.....

First stop today was "Lapland"..... I spoke to the farmer here yesterday and he agreed to let me seed an area of the field for the birds......

I figured seeding could help the buntings and skylarks in the hard weather, and may attract the lap bunts to an area closer to the footpath (as they have been mobile, often distant, and difficult to see amongst the furrows in this field)...... So, this morning I deposited 4 x 25kilo sacks of wheat along some of the ridges nearest to the footpath....

The weather was milder today and as a result the birds here seem to have dispersed to some of the neighbouring fields that are thawing out. "Lapland" had no buntings, but on the walk down to Newton Links a large flock of over 250 skylarks in the rape field included 1 nice male lap......

With the thaw on, and birds dispersing, I thought seeding here might be a waste of time, but when I returned a little later 5 lap bunts were back in the field, although they didn't seem to have found the seed yet..... time will tell.....

At Newton Links today a large flock of meadow pipits were amongst the grazing cattle, the grazing here has caused lots of short areas that look useful for pipits, finches and maybe snow buntings too, so I'll be keeping an eye on this area......

Down at the Nanny there was an impressive flock of 334 curlew..... also 27 dunlin, 7 redshank, 5 teal and 76 wigeon.....

Wigeon on the Nanny.....

Birding was suspended at the Long Nanny while an amazing hail storm passed over...... a total white out and huge hail stones that really hurt !!.... Despite the thaw, the windchill here today was evil.... At one point I couldn't feel my chin, think I need to get a balaclava !!

I tucked myself under the bridge to escape the hail and scanned the saltmarsh for twite.... no twite today, but the place is still frozen solid in most places so maybe this has had an influence....

Hailstorm at the Nanny....

Finally, in Beadnell Bay today there were 27 goldeneye 2 common scoter and 4 red throated divers.... there may have been more but the sea was pretty rough.....

Football Hole & Low Newton, 27th Dec 2009

After 2 days of drinking way too much booze, surviving solely on posh chocolates and swearing at the telly lots, I have now declared Christmas OVER !!.... THANK FECK FOR THAT !!....

In order to walk off the excesses of the last couple of days I decided to get out and about at Newton again.......

First stop was "Lapland", where the population has increased once again, now 6 lap bunts floating around here, including 2 brighter looking males....... Also good numbers of skylarks and meadow pipits in this field, and the waders here included 11 redshank, 9 GPs and 3 dunlin....

Despite my good birding intentions it was cold wet and windy today, as a result I got piss wet through and saw feck all...... Still it was nice to be away from the chocolates and the TV for a bit...

I spent most of the day stumbling around in the horizontal rain trying not to break my neck on the icy bits...... I managed to see 26 pinkfeet (at Lapland), 9 purple sands, 4 barwits and a grey plover (at Low Newton)..... Offshore at Newton Point there were a couple of red throats and mergs amongst the eiders, but that was about it......

No bird pics today...... it was just too dark and wet to bothered !

Low Newton, still looking wintery despite the thaw.....

A birdless Newton Pool, frozen solid.....

In my mind I had crazy visions of a frozen pool with a small area of open water maintained by a couple of paddling goldeneye and perhaps a nice drake smew too !!........ Hmmmmmm.......... it wasn't to be this time......

Football Hole, 24th Dec 2009

In true "bloke" fashion I did all of my Christmas shopping in one mad dash this morning.....

I made the mistake of visiting the local shopping centre..... Here I battled the crowds until I reached the point where I wanted to punch someone (about 45 minutes into the ordeal)...... at that point I decided it would be a good idea to leave the place and consider my Christmas shopping done !.......

To unwind from the 45 minutes of retail hell I decided to visit Newton for a couple of hours....

The plan was to meet my mate Bazza and and drop into Football Hole to see if we could re-locate the jack snipe from earlier in the week (a potential patch tick for Barry).....

We had no luck with the Jack Snipe, but I was very surprised to hear a lap but call again, to be honest I thought they'd have buggered right off by now....

After a 20 minute wait the lap bunt revealed itself, and not only that but the little flock of 3 is building.... 5 birds in total now !!......They were a patch tick for Bazza too....... MERRY BLOODY CHRISTMAS !!

I spent the next couple of hours stood freezing my tits off and trying to get some pics.... Not easy as the birds are frequenting a large private field full of horses, and in true lap bunt fashion they are creeping about the place like mice often disappearing behind tussocks and never re-appearing !!

Below are a few "record shots" showing some plumage variations, that male is particularly smart looking !

....Cracking laps !!

There were also a few of these in the field today.....

Reed bunting...

Also in the field were good numbers of skylarks (over 150) and a few meadow pipits.

.... oh, and a couple of these....

For anyone interested in looking for the lap bunts here....... Today they were in the large horse field between High Newton and Football Hole (the same as Tuesday) grid ref NU238 256. This field is strictly private, but it can be easily scanned from public footpaths that run along 2 sides of the field (south and east).... patience and a telescope will be required !!

....... MERRY CHRISTMAS !!

Football Hole, 22nd Dec 2009

PATCH TICK !!.... AND WHAT AN ABSOLUTE SPANKER !!

I dropped into Newton this lunchtime and decided to give Football Hole a quick look on the off chance of a jack snipe (in winter snipe and the occasional jack snipe use the stream here when everywhere else is frozen over)

On arriving at Football Hole I was stopped in my tracks by a call I've been waiting years to hear at Newton.... A dry rattle quickly followed by a "tew"......I looked up to see three birds flying in from the north, eventually landing a long way off in the dunes..... the telescope was quickly scrambled to confirm the ID !

Sure enough there were three cracking LAPLAND BUNTINGS !!

....... THEY DO EXIST !!!.......

No sooner had I focused in on them when I they took off again, this time heading quite a way inland to a horse paddock at High Newton..... Eventually I caught up with them, and managed a couple of crap distant record shots....

.....Christmas cracker !!

Spot the laps.....

Regular readers of this blog will know the significance of this bird for me..... Its one of my favourite species and I've spent years trying to see a lap bunt at Newton....... I've always failed miserably....... well, until today !!.... FANTASTIC !!

Still high on the lap bunt buzz, I floated back down to the stream at Football Hole where there was 13 snipe and a cracking jack snipe bobbing about in the middle of the stream ! This little beauty was full frame in my scope for a few seconds until I reached for the camera, when all the snipe including Jack decided to bugger off !!...... BOLLOX !!

It was close and nicely lit up in the sun, so it would have made a great pic....... but it wasn't to be I guess....... so here's a pic of the beach instead....... looking a bit wintery.......

Football Hole beach, not as good as jack snipe tho......

High Newton & Long Nanny, 19th Dec 2009

IT'S GOOD TO BE BACK ON THE PATCH !!

Its been over a month since I last visited Newton, a combination of a busy life, a honeymoon and a general lack of birding motivation have meant that I've missed a few weeks and a few birds too, including a little egret.....

Today I took a long walk around High Newton and up to the Long Nanny, and despite the freezing conditions and heavy snow at times, I really enjoyed it !!

Nothing amazing to report, but around High Newton a flock of 26 yellowhammers and a tree sparrow was nice.... There was also a handful of skylarks in the fields here.....

Skylark in the snow....

In the fields next to the Newton Links road a large flock of wildfowl included 136 greylags, 6 pinkfeet, 15 mute swans and 13 whoopers......

Whooper swans near the Links...

Down at the Links the shit heap area has cattle feeding near it and they are doing a good job of keeping the ground here open from frost and snow.... the result is that the area was lifting with birds.....7 song thrushes, 4 blackbirds, 14 meadow pipits, 2 skylarks, 9 chaffinches, 3 stonechats.....

Like the last couple of winters I'll be keeping an eye on this area....looks like a good place for snow bunts or that elusive lap bunt to turn up (think I said that last year, and the year before !).... The farmer is no longer dumping horse shit here tho, so I don't think there will be any large numbers of thrushes using the area this winter....

Up towards the Long Nanny the flooded fields held large numbers of roosting waders, with 30 odd redshank amongst 500+ golden plover and 300+curlew....... No little egret today tho...

Around on the beach the shore was white !......

Snow....

Most of the shore was covered in snow, but a small area of saltmarsh was more open and the wintering twite flock were here...... 73 birds in total, plus 5 skylarks.... I was kinda hoping for a shorelark, but it wasn't to be this time......

Twite in the snow.....

Offshore a flock of around 100 wigeon were lurking, also 14 goldeneye and a merg...... There may well have been other stuff, but a heavy snow shower came in and cut short my scanning of the bay, so I made my way back to High Newton....

On the walk back to High Newton all of the waders flushed from the fields...... I scanned the area in hope of a hen harrier (that would be a patch tick), of course there was no harrier, but a large female Peregrine carrying what appeared to be a teal floated overhead........ Awesome !!

Desert Sparrows....

I discovered that my little digital camera has a video option.... quality is a little disappointing but I hope you can see what these are....

The desert sparrows had a sparrow like call, and also a call that sounded a little bit like a greenfinch (you can just hear this in the video below)

Desert Sparrow calling...

House Bunting in Marrakech...

Male House Bunting singing outside our hotel room...

Note the famous Koutoubia Mosque in the background..... doesn't it look attractive with those tv aerials and satellite dishes around it !

Here's another pic minus the dishes.....

I gather this is the Moroccan equivalent of Big Ben..... well..... except its not a big clock !