High Newton, 23rd Aug 2008

I've been ringing at Newton for about a year now and have never caught a sparrowhawk until last Sunday...... but now I've ringed 3 since then.... Whats going on ?..... The bird today was a female.... not huge but a fair bit bigger than the 2 recent males, an impressive sight !!

Double hard !!

As always, this bird was handled with extreme care, for its own welfare..... but also for mine too !! ..... these things are super rapid with their talons and have claws like that sink into flesh like razors..... and I learnt from my first ever sprawk handling experience that once they've locked onto your hand those claws sink very deep and are a bastard to get out, usually involving a lot of pain and blood ! I was totally savaged !!........Never doing that again !!

So...I was up for the sunrise today.... "which was nice..."

"Nice....."

A bit of ringing, and it was fairly quiet, a spotted fly did a good job of avoiding the nets... AGAIN... Otherwise just normal stuff kickin about really.

I was bored so I took the pics below to show how to ID willow warbler and Chiffchaff in the hand........

Chiffchaff wing, emarginated to the 6th primary

Willow warbler wing, emarginated to the 5th primary

Exciting stuff huh !!

I didn't bother birding Newton today, I packed up ringing about 10am, and noticed that the hordes of bank holidayers were starting to arrive.... Being the grumpy old git that I am I knew that all of the people were going to irritate me...... so I went home for a kip instead.....

Low Newton & Newton Pool, 22nd Aug 2008

PATCH TICK !!!..............Not a bird tho.......

Today I saw an otter at Newton Pool !! Not the best views...... well shite views to be honest.... but it was still a real live otter !! Saw it surface once....... its head, and then its back as it arched out of the water when it dived and vanished...... Its still good tho, been waiting ages to get an otter at Newton.....

I managed a couple of hours ringing this morning before work and caught this !

Second one in the space of a week !!

A greenshank and whimbrel flew over the site as I was ringing.

A flying visit late afternoon gave me an adult roseate tern and arctic skua at Low Newton. On the flood pool there were just ducks and 2 swans.... 11 teal and 30 odd mallard to be precise.... At Newton point there were three wheatears.....

........and at Newton Pool there was an otter !!..... BLINDIN !!

Football Hole, Newton Point & Low Newton, 19th Aug 2008

A flying visit this evening to see if that Greenish had vacated The Farnes and landed on the patch. The answer............. NO !

At the Tin Church there was nowt, I followed this with some more nowt at Football Hole, balanced with a helping of nowt at Newton Point. Eager not disrupt the emerging pattern I worked hard to successfully finish off with a great big dollop of nowt at Low Newton too !!

To sum up, it felt very quiet indeed.... only birds of and note were a whimbrel, 2 common sands and 3 barwits all at Newton Point....

Time in the field = birds.......... apparently........

High Newton & Low Newton, 17th Aug 2008

Today on my first net round I tripped over a log, put my fist through the mist net and landed in a bed of nettles !!

Then.....as if that wasn't enough...I leapt out of the nettles that were stinging my face, straight into a pool of water........ BOLLOX !! Then just to finish things off it started pissing down..... FUGGIN MARVELOUS !!

At the time I was stumbling about and swearing a lot, but on reflection it was quite funny..... well except for my sodden clothes and extensive stinging nettle rash.... it must have looked like something off you've been framed !

So I managed just 1 net round today.... I caught 2 birds, a wren that I ringed yesterday and this !

Juv male sparrowhawk.... AWESOME !!

While I was ringing 10 crossbills flew low south over the site, then a few minutes later a cracking green sand made a very brief stopover on one of the newly dug ponds, probably the same bird as I saw yesterday ?..... or maybe not ? Didn't stop around long anyway....

Down at the flood pool still plenty of birds, the black tailed godwit was still there, 4 dunlin, 1 common sand, 2 redshank, 17 teal, 9 shoveler, and an odd looking med gull....

This bird had no primaries and a rather round head shape. The bill was dull perhaps suggesting a 2nd year bird.....

On Newton Pool there was once again NAFF ALL !!

So off to Newton Point..... I stopped to scan the Emblestones, 4 roseates were sat amongst the sandwich terns..... At the point an immature male merlin dashed across the shore. A 20 minute seawatch produced nothing at all......

Feels like its nearly autumn, and today was south easterlies with a bit of drizzle..... so being the optimistic soul that I am, I found myself checking out the bushes at Football Hole for that barred warbler or wryneck......

.....I saw nuffin....... then went home.

High Newton & Low Newton, 16th Aug 2008

An early start today, ringing wasn't all that.... but a few more warblers were nice...

The ringing site seemed busy today with a good few willow warblers "huueeeet"ing, blackcaps "tack"ing and a spotted flycatcher.... well..... thats was just flitting about the place really.... I got the feeling these were migrants..... "which was nice" !

While I was ringing a green sandpiper flew over heading south, the first one I've seen here for years, so I was dead chuffed ! This was followed a few minutes later by a female peregrine.....

Pegga.... taken with my little digital camera on 10x zoom as it skimmed over....

A feature of the area at the moment are some large starling flocks, I've been dutifully grilling these for the rosy but no luck yet..... some of these flocks have been numbering into the high hundreds tho.......

Spot the rosy...... in fact no please don't.... I'd be gutted !!

Down at the flood pool the godwit was still present, but a scan of the gulls produced nowt... Also on the pool today were 11 shoveler, 7 gadwall, 3 wigeon and 7 teal.

Godwit

Bonkers lookin !

Around at the Newton Pool there was stuff all again..... Waters really high here, just 5 mute swans, 4 coots, 3 little grebes and a handful of mallard..... yawn.....

On the beach at Low Newton were around 70 pied wagtails, including some pale looking juvs....

Cit wag wannabe..... well not really anything like one, but you know what I mean....... mmmm...... or maybe you don't ? Often I'm the only one who has any idea what I'm rambling on about......

While I was watching the wagtails, everything on the beach went up...... this time a nice male merlin dashed across, a belter !

Finally, 3 roseate terns were fishing off Newton Point and a quick 30 minutes seawatch here produced a sum total on 1 sooty shearwater.......

High Newton & Low Newton, 15th Aug 2008

Is there anything unusual in this lot ? Click the image to enlarge it.....

Some gulls at Low Newton flood pool this evening.....

I did a quick visit to the patch this afternoon/evening and got a couple of hours ringing in, ringed about 10 birds and all except 2 were warblers..... Maybe stuff is starting to move a bit ? My birds consisted of 4 willow warblers, 4 blackcaps, a dunnock and a robin. Weather permitting I'll have a longer session tomorrow....

While I was ringing a crossbill flew south...... is this not just the same bleedin crossbill I see every week I wonder ??

I decided to drop down to Low Newton and check out the flood pool before leaving, seems the flood is starting to work its magic and pull in a few birds now......

Amongst the gulls and honkin greylags were 6 teal, 2 shoveler, 2 wigeon, 7 redshank and black-tailed godwit !

Blackwit....

I took some time to grill the gulls here, but most were roosting and low in the grass making viewing very difficult.....

So..... Did you spot anything in that gulls picture ? This was part of a group of gulls I was grilling, I picked out an adult med but it was head down and tucked in, only those gleaming white primaries gave it away....

I watched the gulls for about 20 minutes before the med eventually lifted its head.....

Lazy med.....

More Black Stork.....

It's only 10 minutes down the road from where I work, so I thought I'd add it to my "works time" list !!

Funny, I don't keep a Northumberland list, or a Co Durham list for that matter, but I do have a "works time" list. For those of you that don't know what I am on about, this is a list of birds that I have seen while I have been (....or should have been) working...

...... and before you get the impression that I am some sort of listing nerd who spends his spare time in a dark room updating weekly spreadsheets with latin names, all of my lists are mental...... I like the idea of keeping mentalists !!

..... But you know what I mean...... I have no idea what my list totals actually are... so I can't be all that sad eh.......

.....well except that I think Newton list is 198....... urrrgghhhh.......ARSE !!......I AM A NERD !!

"works time" storky.....

Oh well....... this bird joins some other "good uns" on my "works time" list, including......... white gyrfalcon, black lark, scops owl, lesser kestrel, little swift, little bittern, caspian tern, pied billed grebe, sociable plover, american herring gull, aquatic warbler, izzy shrike, two barred crossbill, stilt sandpiper, white throated sparrow, bobolink..... BLAH..... BLAH..... BLAH.....

............NERD !!

Low Newton, Football Hole & Beadnell Bay, 10th Aug 2008

BLEEDIN WEATHER FORECAST !!..... I got up at 5am for some ringing today and it was blowin a gale and pissin down !!

So.... I went birding instead...... well...... once the rain had stopped of course !!.... I'm a fair weather birder me...

Down at Newton Pool there was nothing.... not even a coot... absolutely nowt !!

Nowt....

While I was sat in the hide enjoying some great views of nowt I started daydreaming....

August.......

rares.......

Northumberland crippler......

AQUATIC WARBLER !!...

....and then as if by magic this appeared in a patch of rushes...

Mmmmmm...... not quite.....

On the flood pool lapwings were now at 7, still 4 teal and a large flock of small gulls and curlews... On the emblestones there were 13 roseate terns, and on the sea here were 2 red throated divers...

Low Newton at 7am.... nice empty beach !

Round at Football Hole a couple of roseates were floating about, and then a scan across Beadnell Bay revealed a total of 33 roseates !! They also perched on the rocks at Football Hole a few times....

Roseates at Football Hole.... (click this to enlarge)

Finally on my way home I thought it would be rude not to see the black stork as it was just down the road......

Storky....

High Newton, Low Newton & Long Nanny, 9th Aug 2008

An early start today to beat the rain..... ringing was steady, nothing spectacular but a couple of juvy treecreepers were nice.....

Spotted creeper........ errrr........ NOT !

During the morning a crossbill flew south over the site but unfortunately I couldn't see those wing bars ! Quite a lot of waders moving too, golden plover, redshank and 3 greenshank...

I missed the middle of the day because of the downpours, but mid afternoon it cleared and I headed out round the patch. First off Low Newton........ the flood pool is back !

A wet field....

On the flood were 2 greenshank, 3 lapwing, 5 curlew and 4 teal. Around at Newton Pool there was nothing of great note... but in Embleton Bay there were 17 roseate terns, impressive !

At Newton point a quick 15 minute seawatch produced an arctic skua and a wheatear on the rocks...

Rockjumper....... errrrr........ NOT !

Around at Foootball Hole a large flock of golden plover were grilled for a leggy skinny lookin one.... but no luck...

At the Long Nanny there were 2 more roseates, 3 greenshank, a common sand and a funky juv med gull....

Funky !

Lesser Grey Shrike revisited.....

......Coooool !!

My mate just sent me this link....... click below for some LG action !!

More Long Nanny terns...

Click these pics to enlarge them......

BLIMEY !!!......I've been having right hassle with blogger refusing to enlarge some of my pics when you click on them.... its all very random, some will open while others won't.... haven't got a clue whats going on with it...

The groups of terns in the previous post wouldn't open, so I've re-posted them above here.... if you click on these they should open up now........ errrrrr........ I hope !

Long Nanny, 3rd Aug 2008

The great thing about local patching is that you never know what you're gonna get...... well except another bleedin downpour !!

Yet another storm rolling in over the Long Nanny....

When I saw this rain coming I legged it towards the (now un-inhabited) tern hut for some shelter.... as I got closer I thought I may have heard a roseate tern calling.... then as I arrived all sweaty and out of breath I looked to the shore and saw this......

Terns on the beach........ hang on a minute !!

I couldn't believe my eyes, the tern flock was full of roseates !! I counted 2 little terns, 3 common terns, 6 sandwich terns, 30 odd arctics and 54 ROSEATES !! 20 minutes later I thought I saw some more terns arriving and a re-count resulted in grand total of 61 roseates (including 8 juvs)

Adult roseates showing variation in bill colour...

Roseate juv

More pics.....

So there you go, and unexpected and awesome sight..... my record Newton roseate total of 7 just the other week was well and truly smashed ! ....also on the shore here were 3 kitts, 6 dunlin, 4 sanderling, 2 turnstone and around 45 ringed plovers....

Long Nanny at high tide....

A scan of the Long Nanny itself revealed 3 common sand, 2 greenshank, 3 redshank and 2 curlew..... The sky turned black again so I made a swift retreat to the car... but just before the rain started a large group of around 70 swifts flew south accompanied by a few hirundines... No white bits on the swifts tho !

6 spot burnet moth....

Newton Pool & Newton Point, 2nd Aug 2008

".....ITS ALL QUIET ON THE EASTERN FRONT !! " Stranglers, 1978...

Its true, nowt new to report today.....

Popped into Newton this afternoon and spent my time dodging severe thunderstorms, and getting generally annoyed by people....

One good thing is that the flood pool is re-appearing after all of this heavy rain, hoping its gonna grow in size like last year and pull in a few waders. Today it was the size of a large puddle ! Sat around it were 9 curlew, a small flock of gulls and some honkin greylags...

Round at the hide a grumpy looking heron was sat in the rain

"fuggin weather !"

On the pool were a large group of mallard and 1 teal..... all very exciting ! Just to make things even better the hide filled with screaming kids and some parents who couldn't control em ! Jumping around, screaming and waving out of the windows..... I'm talking about the children not the parents..... MARVELOUS !! Time to leave.....

On the beach at Low Newton I stopped to scope some gulls and waders, until some very kind people who could see that I was watching the birds decided to walk right past me and into the flock ! Grrrrr......

Once the people had moved on and the birds had re-settled I started again and this time three teenagers came running down the beach, made a b line for me, ran past into the flock of birds and then into the sea screaming all the way !! Grrrrrrr......

On the shore here were around 20 turnstones, 9 redshank, 3 common sands and 2 dunlin.....

On the rocks...

Stunner !

Amongst the gulls here was a single common tern....

At Newton Point there were a few terns, mainly arctics, but they included 9 sandwich, a couple of commons and a nice adult roseate. On the shore in football hole were 11 turnstone, 1 dunlin and a whimbrel...

Another thunderstorm came rolling in so I decided to call it a day.......

Thunderstorm over Newton Pool.....(click the picture to enlarge)