A ten day trip to England always gives a few birding opportunities and this year was no exception. My birding pal David and I have been doing this for more years than we care to remember and have fallen into a predictable pattern starting at a reserve at Linton Lane and heading north until the light fails.
Linton Lane is a "flash" - a pond of water surrounded by reeds and rough pasture caused by subsidence. It required a bit of an effort to get there as there had been a lot of rain and the approaches were flooded I was using a couple of sticks which were sinking into four inches of mud. However the effort to get there was rewarded as we were quickly seeing birds in the water and around the shores. We started with mute swans, mallard, tufted duck, gadwall, shoveler, wigeon, pochard, coot, herring gull, black-headed gulls, little grebe, carrion crows, grey heron, wood pigeon and then a gorgeous barn owl which drifted over the hide and flew across the reeds in front of us. This was followed by a buzzard sitting on a distant pylon and a female marsh harrier slowly quartering the far shore and pushing about 200 teal out of the reeds into the water. Back to the car and we added robin, chaffinch, blackbird, song thrush, magpie, pheasant and grey partridge before driving to the Queen Elizabeth II Country Park.
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| Linton Lane |
This is an interesting site with good birds on the water but there is also a mob of ducks and geese in the car park coming to be fed by well meaning locals who roll up with pan loaves, rolls and baguettes. We quickly added greylag geese, Canada goose, moorhen and common gull in the car park, but the most unexpected bird was a single whooper swan in the middle of the bread feeders. The lake gave us goldeneye, cormorant, great crested grebe and red-throated diver.
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| Whooper swan |
Onwards past Woodhorn Flash an our first sightings of pink-footed goose and then through Lynemouth to hit the coastal road to Cresswell and Snab Point. The tide was fully in at this point so the flooded fields contained stonechat, redshank, lapwing, curlew and oystercatcher. The high tide meant that small waders were absent but we did pick up great black-backed gull, fulmar, eider duck, shag and common scoter out to sea.
Our next stop was Cresswell Pond which is another "flash" but as it is only 100 m inland it is good for waders, ducks and all sorts of other goodies. We had a lot of wigeon, lapwing, coot and moorhen, but were amazed to see 17 Mediterranean gulls on the water as well as shelduck, red-breasted merganser, little egret, dunlin, ringed plover and turnstone. The walk down to the hide is usually good for small stuff but this year there were no feeders so we only saw wren, starling and chaffinch.
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Cresswell Pond
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| Mediterranean gulls |
The next leg to Druridge has a dune system on one side and farmland on the other side. There is usually a finch flock around the feeding areas for the cattle so we picked up on goldfinch, linnet, 3 grey partridge, pied wagtail, rook, jackdaw, magpie and a single skylark. A local birder asked us had we come to see the hooded crow. We laughed and said no, not really, we get them in the garden. Two minutes later the hooded crow did a flypast and got added to our list as well as being added to my Northumberland list. He also advised us that Druridge Pools were inaccessible without wellies, so after a cursory look and a nice female kestrel we headed for Widdrington where we saw 14 red-legged partridge and a nice wee house sparrow flock.  |
East Chevington
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We continued north to East Chevington and the new hides but the lake only held wigeon, tufted duck, mute swans, greylag geese, cormorants. lapwings and goldeneye, nothing to quicken the pulse so it was on to Druridge Bay Country Park, lunch and the feeders. It took us a while to find them as they have been moved but once we got our eye in we added quite a number of passerines to the list - coal tit, blue tit, great tit, long-tailed tit, tree sparrow, dunnock, bullfinch and eventually a willow tit. Next stop was Hadston Scarrs and then into Hauxley Nature reserve and another feeding station which added reed bunting, siskin and greenfinch to the list. By this time the light was dropping, cloud was piling in and rain had set in so we had a quick look at the beach south of Amble, the Amble estuary, (golden plover) and sped back to the QE II CP for a last look for the redhead smew which we had missed earlier - unfortunately we missed it again.  |
| Coquet Island from Low Hauxley |
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| Feeders at Druridge Bay but no woodpecker. |
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| Reed bunting (F) |
My lack of mobility meant that sanderling didn't make the list and we somehow managed to miss collared dove, but we ended up with 75 species including 9 additions to the 2024 list. All in all a cracking day, beautiful scenery, friendly locals stunning birds and it was all we hoped it would be.
The scenic route to Bolton added black grouse at Langdon Beck and Richard's garden turned up a nuthatch on the feeders and a calling tawny owl in the nearby woodland. Pennington Flash was a bit disappointing as the main feeding station was flooded and the smaller one was overrun with grey squirrels. It did however have at least a dozen reed buntings - the most I have seen anywhere for a long time.
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| Pennington Flash, view from Pengy's hide |
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| Reed buntings |
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| Reed bunting |
2024:106: Pochard
107: Barn owl
108: Marsh harrier
109: Grey partridge
110: Mediterranean gull
111: Skylark
112: Red-legged partridge
113: Willow tit
114: Reed bunting
115: Black grouse
116: Tawny owl
117: Nuthatch
WOW
59: Eider duck, managed to miss this last time out!
