Northumberland delivers........ again

Cracking day out despite gales and wintry showers. We started at Linton Lane with a hunting  barn owl, finished at Hauxley with a water rail and in between had three separate marsh harriers and a total of 75 species for the day. Before I go through the highlights a brief mention of black grouse in the Pennines and four red grouse which walked across the road in front of the car. Bolton gave up a nuthatch at the children's playground but the tawny owls refused to call in wind and driving rain. Martin Mere puddle jumping competition added pochard and ruff with a kestrel somewhere along the M62.

The forecast for Saturday's birdathon was very windy - force 6/7 and blustery showers, and they got it right. We spent a couple of spells sitting tight as showers moved through, but never more than 15 minutes. We had good views of barn owl  and little owl making it a two owl day. This is rare event in Northern Ireland as we only have three species and one is a rare winter visitor. We also saw pink-footed goose, three marsh harriers, grey plover, water rail, goosander, common scoter, sanderling, and red-throated diver as well as a host of common species even though most birds were keeping their heads down. We rolled up at Chevington Burn and could see nothing, but in ten minutes we had added six species. Stonechat popped up at Druridge Bay as did a mixed twite, linnet, chaffinch flock. Displaying skylark was a nice sight considering the wind speed. High tide meant we missed a few coastal birds but all in all we were happy bunnies at the end of a long day. It was also good to meet up with Dave who writes a blog about the Druridge Bay area and keeps me on top of what is happening there. Always nice to put a face to a name and we had a good chat.

Linton Lane with a distant barn owl -it's the small white dot

Zooomed up to the max

With prey - probably a vole

QE2 Country Park and mad bird couple

QE 2 goosander not interested in pan loaf

Wildfowl at Druridge Pools

Shoveler at Druridge Pools

Twite with a linnet

Little owl

East Chevington feeders

East Chevington feeders

East Chevington feeders

Hauxley warter rail

Every photo so far has been taken by David as his camera is a lot better than mine. Here are a few of mine and you can clearly see why I do not put a lot more of mine on.

Hauxley tree sparrows

Hauxley blue tit

My best water rail

Blue tits

It's not PC to dwell on might have beens but we missed out on pied wagtail and fulmar, failed to see pintail and smew and couldn't find any pochard. Just goes to show that 80 in a day is do-able. We'll blame the gale force winds and enjoy the 75 we did get. Here are a few scenes to show why we keep coming back.

Chevington Burn

East Chevington

Skua hide at Hauxley

The journey across to Cairnryan included a stop at the red kite feeding station near Castle Douglas and a hen harrier en route. All in all a nice little break topped off by a meadow pipit at WOW this week

If you feed them....

......they will come

2020
96: Kestrel
97: Pochard
98: Ruff
99: Nuthatch
100: Black grouse
101: Red grouse
102: Pink-footed goose
103: Common scoter
104: Marsh harrier
105: Water rail
106: Grey pllover
107: Sanderling
108: Barn owl
109: Little owl
110: Skylark
111: Stonechat
112: Twite
113: Red kite
114: Hen harrier
115: Meadow pipit
 

Bangor West
51: Carrion crow

Belfast WOW
63: Meadow pipit

Pre England catch up

Just a quick catch-up before I head off for even more child minding in Bolton followed by a trip to Tyneside and the traditional dawn to dusk round Druridge, Chevington and Hauxley. I have been doing a bit of garden watching, had a walk along the coastal path and been to WOW, so progress is as follows. It being a waxwing winter I ticked them for 2020 in East Belfast, no photos as they were very flighty and as I was half way through a count in a rowan they took off and didn't come back. The coastal path added goldcrest, carrion crow and sparrowhawk to the local patch - all expected but nice to get them out of the way. Photos attached from the garden and the coast. I have also added in a couple of red squirrel shots from Castlewellan Forest Park. I stumbled on this little beauty near the castle while looking for jays, which I also got.

Patch tick for redwings - a record shot!

Blue tit

Blackcap

Goldfinch on niger seed

Bullfinch (F)

Chaffinch

Linnet (F)

Linnet (F)

Eider duck

High tide roost

Patch grey wagtail

Castlewellan FP

Castlewellan FP

WOW today turned up 36 species including a nice snipe, a siskin, a blackbird and a little grebe. Here are two from this morning.

Shelduck

Snipe

2020
95: Waxwing

Bangor West
49: Goldcrest
50: Sparrowhawk
51: Carrion crow

Belfast WOW
58: Redwing

59: Sparrowhawk

60: Mistle thrush 
61: Blackbird
62: Little grebe

Patch gold redwings

Brief update as we move into February with increasing daylight and rising temperatures. Redwings featured well this year so far. They have been in and around the garden, one actually sat in my hawthorn tree recently but two appeared at WOW this week - perched above the buzzard in the buzzard tree. Checking back revealed that they were the first redwings I have ever seen at WOW in over 20 years of visiting the site. We also had song thrush and mistle thrush on the same day but so far I have not yet recorded blackbird in 2020 - isn't birding wonderful!! I also added a sparrowhawk to the WOW list as it flew over harassed by a hooded crow. The species list hit 37 for the morning which is a good number for  three hours on the site. With a bit of diligence and a walk to Hide 2 I would have hit 40 fairly easily. The following photographs were taken recently around the observation room and the feeders.

Reed bunting

Mrs Shoveler

Mr Shoveler

Buzzard enjoying lunch, no idea what bird it was!!

WOW always gives you a nice teal

The following photo explains why my seed feeder was being emptied on a daily basis. The rook was sitting on a nearby branch happily munching sunflower seeds. A bit of pruning with the saw removed his perch so hopefully he will have a bit of a challenge in future. Now all I have to do is remove the cat which hides in the shrubbery looking for a meal. I think a mega super-soaker is called for!!

2020
93: Tree sparrow 
94: Sparrowhawk

 
Bangor West

47: Blackcap

48: Brent goose

Belfast WOW
58: Redwing

59: Sparrowhawk

60: Mistle thrush