Thats it... I'm off !!

Yep... I'm off to Shetland for my usual 2 weeks on Unst...

Just checked the long range weather forecast in anticipation of all those sibe rares…..

Looks like gale force westerly winds for the 14 hour boat journey tonight….. followed by 2 weeks of strong westerlies……… FUGGIN MARVELOUS !!!

Back at Newton after the 8th Oct, so I’ll be up and posting again after this date…

Fingers firmly crossed for a crippling yank now.....

Newton Point & Newton Pool, 17th Sept 2007

The BBC are a bunch of bastards !!

I took this afternoon off work to go seawatching after checking the weather on the BBC website, strong northerlies with occasional showers clearing….. SHOWERS ????……. CLEARING ????

What it should have said is TORRENTIAL DOWNPOURS WITH HURRICANE FORCE WINDS RESULTING IN NON STOP HORIZONTAL RAIN AND SERIOUS DEPRESSION…

Being the hardcore patcher I am, when I arrived at Newton and it was pissing down, I still got togged up and headed out to the point safe in the knowledge that it was only a shower and it would soon be clearing….

After an hour huddled at the point I was totally piss wet through and freezing cold, and I’d seen a manxie, 9 pale bellied brent geese and that bleedin wheatear that’s still refusing to migrate..…. FUGGIN GREAT !

It was all too much, so I headed off to see if the Pec was still around but I couldn’t be arsed to look very hard as it was still chucking down…

In to the hide for some shelter, and I discover one of the rubber feet has fallen of my tripod somewhere… BOLLOX !!! Nothing new here, a few birds in front of the hide for once was quite nice….

Quite nice.....

An hour or so later the rain eased and I left the hide, and headed back to the flood… at this point I met some bloke who gave me a load of old cobblers about the birds on birdline, and then just mentioned that he found great snipe here 2 years ago !! WHAT THE FUCK ?????

He said it in a very confident and matter of fact manner… then proceeded to describe a large bird flying like a woodcock coming in off the sea…. “It was definitely a great snipe, it was larger than a snipe and flying like a woodcock”, the whole story was told in a rather arrogant manner to be honest...

I should have said... “FOR FUCKS SAKE !!! LARGER THAN A SNIPE AND FLYING LIKE A WOODCOCK ????…..THEN... IT WAS PROBABLY A WOODCOCK !!”.

Instead I just nodded and smiled….Sometimes I think I am just way too polite !!! I really can’t be arsed dealing with this kind of pointless discussion tho… firstly, he didn’t even submit the record, and secondly, I am cold, soaking with a serious risk of developing trench foot….

Despite his efforts to keep me talking, I made my excuses and headed off.

Halfway back to the point to try again and the rain came in…. AGAIN….. I gave up and went home…..

So….. I got drenched... twice, broke my tripod, saw fuck all and had to listen to some bloke talking about finding cripplers on my local patch..… and best of all I had to use up my annual leave to experience this pleasure…..

Maybe I should just give up birding….

Newton Pool & Newton Point, 16th Sept 2007

I went for a blast on my bike yesterday afternoon and I couldn’t resist popping into Newton… I had my bins with me, and every intention of doing a bit of birding…. But….. a kind offer of tea and some much needed cake got in the way, and I ended up spending and hour chatting to some friends instead….. westerly winds, naff all reported down the coast what’s the worst that can happen ???

I said goodbye and enjoyed a fun ride home playing with a Subaru Impreza and some other big sports car thingy until I got bored… I arrived home with a big cheesy grin as I always do when I’ve been out for a ride….

The subaru chomper.....

My grin vanished when I looked at my mobile and saw a missed call from Stewart….

Pec sand at Low Newton ???? BOLLOX ?????

It was a patch tick but I couldn’t be bothered heading back to Newton so late in the day…

Luckily it was still present first thing this morning… PATCH TICK !!

Pec sand, Low Newton

Many thanks to Tim Dean for finding this bird…… errrrrrr………. while I was up the road stuffing my face with cake !! Also on the flood were 4 redshank, 14 snipe, 2 lapwing, a ruff and 2 curlew.

So next off round to the hide… The wildfowl numbers still seem to be creeping up here with 5 wigeon and a couple of shoveler amongst the many teal and mallards.

Wigeon on Newton Pool

Also here were quite a few snipe, while 50 odd pinkfeet flying over were the first I’ve seen this year… A water rail plodding about on the far side of the pool was the first one I’ve seen here for 8 months or so too..

A quick walk along to the point produced 3 barwits and 11 little gulls, otherwise pretty quiet…

Should I continue round to Beadnell Bay or go and feed my cake habit ?….. no question really.. so I headed home for custard tarts !!…… mmmmmm……… nice……

Newton Point, 9th Sept 2007

Had a walk up to Newton Point this evening to see the wheatear……. Yep its still there !!! Can’t imagine it’s the same bird, but I swear every day I’ve been there for the past 2 months there has been a wheatear kicking about the rocks at the point…

On the rocks the usual large numbers of roosting golden plover once again failed to provide that American or pacific job… If I keep scanning them….. maybe……. one day….. who am I kidding !!

Spot the skinny....... leggy one...

An hour of seawatching produced

4 arctic skuas
2 manxies
3 little gulls
4 common scoter

TOTAL PANTS !! No migrants…. No seabirds…. I can’t take much more of this….

High Newton, Newton Point & Newton Pool, 8th Sept 2007

Well I was so bored today I ended up taking photos of blue tits !! Yep that’s how sad I am !!

Spent the morning ringing and didn’t catch anything too mind blowing… in fact all I seemed to catch was bleeding tits !! One new species for the site was a great spotted woodpecker tho…

1st year Great-spotted Woodpecker

Ringing was slow so it gave me opportunity to take a few pics…. Pleased I did now because I haven’t got much to say today, so I’ll just post these up instead an pretend that I really do know what I’m talking about !!

If you click on the images below to enlarge them, you will be able to see the subtle differences in colour more clearly (especially the blue tit pics).

A couple of examples of ageing.....

Blackbird

Adult blackbird in main moult (note the contrast between the worn pale brown primaries, secondaries, alula and median coverts, against newly moulted darker feathers)

Juvenile blackbird before post juvenile moult (all juvenile feathers the same age)

Adult blackbird tail (broad and rounded)

Juv/1st winter blackbird tail (narrower and more pointed than adult with some distinct "hooky" tips)

Blue tit

Juvenile blue tit in post juvenile moult (note contrast in colour between blue greater coverts and paler greenish blue primary coverts, also note 1 greater covert still moulting)

1st winter blue tit (note contrast between unmoulted greenish blue primary coverts and the newer blue greater coverts. This bird has moulted the largest alula but retained the others creating simlar contrast the alula feathers)

Adult blue tit (uniform blue wing feathers, no moult contrast)

A couple of examples of sexing......

Great tit

Male great tit (broad black stripe down the centre of underparts widens to a large patch between the legs)

Female great tit (breast stripe narrow and broken with a small patch of black between the legs mixed with white)

Goldcrest

Male goldcrest (orange in the central crown feathers)

Female goldcrest (central crown feathers yellow)

By lunchtime the tit fest was starting to wear a bit thin (……blimey maybe I should rephrase that !!)…..so time to go birding for a bit….

Off to Newton Point where a ten minute seawatch produced an arctic skua terrorising a sandwich tern over my head (totally awesome !!), a sooty shearwater and 18 pale-bellied brents. Unfortunately this natural spectacle, and the peace and tranquillity of Newton, was wrecked by some fuckwits in speedboats bezzing it up and down around football hole….. NOISY WANKERS !!….

Nothing a surface-to-surface missile or sea mine wouldn’t sort….. if only….

Time to move on… No birds in football hole thanks to the nobheads in the boats, so off down to Low Newton instead. The flood pool held a nice array of waders, 2 dunlin, a greenshank, 3 redshank, 5 curlew and 9 snipe. Further on to the willows by the wardens cottage, and just like the ringing site there was absolutely naff all except a small flock of tits !! When is the autumn going to arrive ? Need some weather and easterlies….

At Newton Pool wildfowl numbers appear to be rising with plenty of teal, mallard, 2 wigeon and a shoveler. But the best thing was the grass in front of the hide,…… or lack of it…. The National Trust have done a great job of strimming on front of the hide. There’s now a great little bit of shoreline just right for that spotted crake I still need for my Newton list….

The new shoreline...

Unfortunately the crake didn’t show today tho… a bit of rustling and movement got me excited, but it turned out to be a bleedin rabbit !!

A spotted crake....

After a couple of hours I decided the birding was pretty shit, I resorted to taking some pics of butterflies instead….…

Peacock

Painted lady

Red admiral

Newton Point, 4th Sept 2007

What’s that saying about stable doors and horses bolting ???

First time I’ve had chance to get to Newton for a while…. had a good seawatch, but unfortunately no great shears or little shears.

Newton Point, 6pm-7.30pm

2 roseate terns (adult and juv)
14 sooties
20 manxies
7 little gulls
16 arctic skuas
18 pale bellied brent geese
3 red-throated divers
1 wheatear

The view from Newton Point - Probably one of the most scenic places to not see a great shearwater...
click to enlarge

On a boat somewhere....NOT NEWTON, 26th - 29th Aug 2007

Well… I’ve missed a week of good seawatching by the sounds of it…. ARSE !!

But….. I was on that ultimate pelagic boat, so I can be smug ! The only thing I’m really bothered about was the presence of great shearwaters along the Northumberland coast, I still need both great and corys for my Newton list and its certainly not every year you get a chance to nail one….

My 4-5 days on the boat was pretty good tho, no cripplers or the mythical blue whale, but lots of nice seabirds and some awesome cetacean experiences.

Some big blubbery things....

An even bigger blubbery thing.....

The bird list is here:

http://www.ultimatepelagics.com/page16aaaa.html

Cets here:

http://www.ultimatepelagics.com/page13a.html

This boats total sounds impressive but to be honest most people only saw a fraction of this, we were usually too busy stuffing our faces with the free cakes that seemed to appear every hour or so…

….others were just drinking themselves stupid, while one or two sorry individuals spent the trip sharking about, holding in their beer guts, and puffing their chests out in front on the dancing girls who worked on the boat….

Being the dedicated seawatcher I am, I spent the whole trip glued to my scope and just grilling the sea (with the occasional pause for essential cake intake)….I managed little shearwater and at least two wilsons petrels, although we were all fairly sure there were more of these pesky petrels lurking out there…. Sabines gull and pom skua right over the boat were pretty cooool too.

Legendary seawatching guru Andy Stanbury was part of our razor sharp crew

As usual Andy leads the way and shows the boat how it should be done.... always alert and constantly scanning for rares............ and cakes.....

The spectacle of steady stream of passerine migrants flying over the sea off the coast of Spain was pretty impressive. However, quite few tired migrants landed on the boat and were immediately hounded to their certain deaths by idiotic photographers with ridiculously big lenses…. WHAT A BUNCH OF SELFISH BASTARDS !….Why are photographers so intent on sticking their lenses right up the arses of birds ? I thought the whole point of luggin round a lens the size of a battleship is so you didn’t have to get too close to your subject ? There were certainly one or two really pathetic individuals on that boat…. In my opinion, they needed throwing overboard to join the knackered birds they had hounded into the waves….

It seems the age-old birder V photographer battle still rumbles on…. Even at sea….

Anyway, some nice pics will follow soon, when my mates have sent me some ! I had no time for photography myself, too busy scoring the next cake fix and trying to string albatross’s !!