Saltholme with the kids

I had a bit of a wander with my two daughters today around Saltholme then up to the creek to see the seals. Stumbled across a Common Chiffchaff presumably overwintering around the verge between the visitor centre and the wildlife watchpoint and was able to photograph it from the hide on the fence to the left of the feeders.



We also dropped into the Phil Stead hide by the car park and encountered a pair of Lesser Redpolls on the feeders.



No sign of the Green-winged Teal today - it may be tucked up in the channel though on Back Saltholme?

The Long-eared Owls were showing, but a bit tricky with a buggy. Here is a shot from last year instead.



I came across a few noteworthy birds on Cowpen Marsh between the Teesmouth NNR car park and the creek - Spotted Redshank, Kingfisher, Red-breasted Merganser (redhead) but unfortunately  no sign of the Waxwing that has been around there recently. 39 Common Seals on show at high tide.

Little Bustard, Fraisthorpe

An unexpected tick in the form of Little Bustard at Fraisthorpe near Bridlington, seeing as the last Yorkshire record was in 1956! Glad the bird had stuck out the night after turning up when I was at work yesterday, but too late to get there before dark.



A popular bird on day 2 as you can see!

Eastern Crowned Warbler, Brotton

A family trip out to Brotton today for my second ECW. Who would have thought lightning would strike so close after the Trow bird back in 2009? T-shirt weather and blue skies in November. fantastic!

Working through the sycamore canopy, pausing at times momentarily.

A quick trip up to South Gare for a distant Grey Phalarope on the Coatham Sands side of the breakwater rocks and a flightly finch flock with this lovely Twite.

Hoopoe hurray!

I finally caught up with one of my UK bogie birds today - not eaxactly the rarest but undoubtedly splendid. My daughter and I caught up with this Hoopoe at a private site near Beverley which the gracious owner had been kind enough to release news and allow birders onto his drive to view the bird on the manicured lawn at point blank range.

We spent a good while watching it after an initial brief glimpse and a hasty retreat to the car during one of several torrential showers, which each sent the bird over a hedge out of site. Maybe it had found a gazebo?



Hoopoe, Beverley



Hoopoe, Beverley

LEO

Owls have been a bit thin on the ground, but after locating a pair of Tawny Owls on Tuesday evening, I only have Little Owl left for the year list.

I saw SEO on Cowpen Marsh a few weeks ago and Barn Owl on Greenabella Marsh.

This LEO was taken at RSPB Saltholme recently.



One day I might see a Snowy Owl. I thought this winter might have been the one...

Prince Caspian

1W Caspian Gull will have been seen at Lingham Lake, Nosterfield Quarry for 4 months tomorrow. Quite an achievement for what would have been considered a rare bird not so long ago in this neck of the woods!



1W Caspian Gull, Nosterfield Quarry 15/03/14

A Chiffchaff was seen near Flasks lake.

A taste of spring on the reserve this morning with both Skylark and Meadow Pipit back, but I missed each. i did catch up with a sleeping Ruff though, so a three year-tick day.

Winter Swans, Sadberge

A party of four swans have favoured a field just north of the Dogs Trust in Sadberge since December.  The group is made up of 3 Whooper Swans - one adult and two juveniles along with one adult Bewick's.

Although the two species have extensive overlap, there are still no definitive cases of hybridisation in the wild. Hybrid offspring would be difficult to recognise due to the similar morphology and bill markings. The book 'Bewick's Swan' by Eileen Rees describes incidences of other Bewick's hybrids though.

Family party of Whooper Swans, Sadberge

Bewick's and Whooper together

Bewick's Swan, Sadberge



Whooper Swan, Sadberge

Great Grey Shrike, Bradbury

Following on from the Swans at Sadberge, I made the short trip to Bradbury where I enquired about the presence of the shrike.  A group of birders in a parked car had had no joy scanning the hedge north of the railway line, so I started scanning the general field boundary and picked it up near the farm at first.  It then flew to the hedge by the A1 - some distance hence the poor record shot!

Bert Mitchell, John Money and a few others turned up just as I located it.



Great Grey Shrike, Bradbury
3 January 2014

A nearby flock of gulls contained Black-headed, Common, Herring and Lesser Black-backed.

Here's one I made earlier! Just a little bit closer :-)



Great Grey Shrike, Hartlepool Headland
10 October 2010

Staveley YWT

A family trip to Staveley (a recently expanded YWT reserve near Boroughbridge) late this morning with the family was quite fruitful with views of Water Rail from one of the East Lagoon hides.



Water Rail

The other highlight was picking up a Marsh Tit when chatting with Maurice Local.

Surprisingly no Yellowhammer, Siskin or Redpoll before heavy rain put the dampers on things.

Foot It 2014 begins

We're off! The first bird of 2014 for me was a Woodpigeon...

Nothing earth-shattering, but the Foot It list is up and running and stands at 22 species:

Woodpigeon 

Robin

Blackbird 

Jackdaw

Great Tit

Collared Dove

Chaffinch 

Blue Tit

House Sparrow

Dunnock

Goldfinch 

Carrion Crow

Redwing 

Tree Sparrow

Mistle Thrush

Wren

Long-tailed Tit

Fieldfare

Rook

Starling

Greenfinch

Black-headed Gull

A mixed winter thrush flock gorging on my neighbours' apple windfall was good to see, but couldn't match the 26 Blackbirds present yesterday. There were Redwings and Fieldfares in the mix though.

Newburgh Priory today - Barnacle Goose

Numbers a bit different to my last visit in November, with today's highlight being a Barnacle Goose. Still no joy with Green-winged Teal or Ring-billed Gull etc. but you've got to try!



3 Mute Swan
30 Canada Goose
215 Greylag Goose
1 Barnacle Goose
116 Teal
2 Wigeon
142 Mallard
15 Moorhen
1 Pheasant
67 Black-headed Gull
8 Common Gull
1 Pied Wagtail
2 Redwing and 1 Fieldfare in a field towards Byland Abbey

Newburgh Priory, Friday

A quick visit to Newburgh priory on Friday afternoon on the way back from Flamborough was productive in terms of numbers of waterfowl and gulls:

3 Mute Swan
30 Canada Goose
48 Greylag Goose
93 Teal
12 Wigeon
252 Mallard
2 Tufted Duck
18 Moorhen
10 Pheasant
107 Black-headed Gull
153 Common Gull

Quite a sight and noise on such a relatively small lake!

Wader go!

Starting to see a bit of autumnal wader passage with a cracking moulting Curlew Sandpiper on the Tidal Pool today along with Bar-tailed Godwit, Ruff, Redshank, Avocet.

Thrush Nightingale, Hartlepool Headland

What a great bird. Possibly the South Gare bird from during the week?

Little Bunting, Elba Park

Great to finally catch up with this bird after missing out in November 2012!
It was hampered by strong gusting winds but showed well albeit briefly and occasionally.  Good to catch up with some Yorks birders including Nigel, Mark, Lawts and Justin plus Tees birders Peter, Michael et al.





Checked out the Jewish Cem at Hartlepool for migrants - nothing other than Mipits coming in off.

Jack Snipe still around on Seaton Common with pipits and Fieldfares and Redwings.



Saltholme had a taste of spring with Yellow and White wags, Sand Martins, Swallows, LRP present.  Lesser Scaup, Arctic Tern and House Martin across on Haverton too.

Barn Owl, Nosterfield

A little break from Foot It and the patch took me to Nosterfield today.  I often find the Quarry more productive than the NR.  I spent a while in the afternoon sunshine (I know, not a typo!) watching this stunning Barn Owl hunt, perch and preen:

Foot It - Week 1

As we come to the end of the first week of Foot It, I have reached the not so dizzying heights of 40 species.  I set a target of 67 species at the end of December and I have managed to record 38 of these and two which were not on the radar - LBB and GBB Gull, both of which I have seen on patch for the first time during Foot It.   It just goes to show!

January 1 presented me with a day off during the week, something of a rarity itself these days.  After the initial scan of the garden in the morning and the sky  and trees visible with the scope from the house, I spent a couple of hours to the west of the patch taking in some arable and unimproved pasture, a sewage works and some of the A19 and its verges.  

Before leaving the house I hit it lucky with 4 species of gull circling a freshly turned over field, the crow "commute" and a party of winter thrushes including Blackbird, Fieldfare and Redwing (scarce generally here) and a single Brambling in amongst them.  There were some noteworthy finds in a sheep field with 7 Pied Wagtails and 12+ Yellowhammers enjoying the stubble and manure heap.

A few of the more common visitors to the feeders this winter have been Coal Tits (often up to 6 in the garden at once), Tree Sparrows (resident) and Greenfinches (back to normal it seems after trichomoniasis).

A patrolling Kestrel is likely to be one of a pair resident in a nearby stand of trees.  A small flock of Lapwings was an uncommon sight too.

Mud was very much the theme of the day and a lot of disturbance due to shooting with gunfire seemingly coming from three directions.

Saturday allowed a stroll for a few hours taking in Thirkleby and Balk, adding Goldcrest at Thirkleby House and a Buzzard on the ground near Balk.  A few flyover Canada Geese being welcome as there are no public sites I am aware of with geese in my nominal patch.  Monk Park Farm (as seen on Blue Peter does have some Greylags from what I remember). 

Sunday added a brief Dipper at Sowerby, just on the edge of the 3 mile radius, but the sewage works next to the tip yielded nil.

38/67 57% plus 2 not on list 40/69 58%

Buff-bellied Pipit, Berkshire

I had a trip to the Queen Mother Reservoir in Berkshire on Sunday.  It can be found nestled under the flight path for Heathrow and boasts Windsor Castle as a backdrop.  I went to see the American Pipit of course and was not disappointed by views at literally point blank range.  The weather was overcast with the odd speckle of rain, but all things considered, not bad.  The bird was tending to favour the south side of the reservoir which was a fair walk around from the Sailing Club, but should help to prepare me for January's Foot It challenge!









There was a bonus cast of three Ring-necked Parakeets, two Red Kites and a Common Buzzard to keep everyone entertained, plus a small flock of Siskins around the car park.

It was good to catch up with Andy Walker on the day.  You can read his blog here.

I called in at Chenies, Buckinghamshire on the way back round the M25 to catch up with a Great White Egret found alongside the River Chess along with 4 Little Egrets and a Grey Heron.  A pair of Green Woodpeckers and a pair of Kestrels were occasionally seen and heard.

Now back to the Christmas festivities...

Red-spotted Bluethroat at Hartlepool Headland

A quick check of my email before I came away from work on Thursday revealed a Bluethroat had been located on the Headland in the afternoon.  It was found by Chris Brown and was a cracking adult male.  It scurried and flitted about the plants and shrubs and made the odd excursion to the gardens of 15-17 Cliff Terrace and apparently flew to Icky Alley earlier in the afternoon. A drizzly evening with a bit of a sea fret, but brightened up by this little beauty!










Fingers crossed for some more Spring crackers!

Nosterfield Crane

Here is a little collection of shots and footage of the Common Crane at Nosterfield over the last six months or so. Will it stay another six? Let's hope so.

14 January 2012, Flasks Lake

6 August 2011, Ladybridge Farm

3 July 2011, Lingham Lake