Autumn has come early! 19/7/11

My first post for quite a while now so I thought I had to write about St. Mary's. I started in the south bay, watching plenty of juvenile sandwich terns on the rocks, still yet to add roseate tern to me life list so this year I am especially looking out for them. I went for a walk around the lighthouse and came across some very unexpected visitors. I was watching the golden plover through my scope when I spotted a bigger wader in amongst the very smart-looking dunlin and turnstone, it was a red knot in fantastic summer plumage! Much bigger than all the others and very unexpected. There was also some very early summer-plumaged sanderling on the rocks as well. Just the purple sandpipers to come now! I left the island as the tide was coming in and did my first proper sea-watching session from the car-park. From 17:00 to 17:30 I saw: 25 Manx Shearwater, 4 Gannet, 12 Kittiwake and 15+ Sandwich Tern. Not bad for my first time and still early in the year so more to come yet!

Dunlin Knot, Dunlin and Sanderling

A good start to 2011

I haven't been blogging recent as I have had absolutely no time but I will try to blog more in 2011. I was at St. Mary's today and yesterday and there was a lot of birds there. It started in the car park with a reed bunting and redshanks in the field in front of the second car park. Both providing good views. In the north bay there was waders galore: turnstone, dunlin, curlew, golden plover, lapwing, knot, ringed plover and purple sandpiper. But the highlight came in the north bay on the posts. On the end post sat 2 fantastic snow buntings and they were the tamest snow buntings in have ever seen letting me get within 6 feet of them. They really were lovely. Then as we were leaving we saw a black bird on the sea which at the first glance I thought it was a Slovenian grebe but then after looking at the photos when I got back it looked more like a red-necked grebe but I wasn't sure, if anyone could identify it, that would be great.

Snow Buntings in the North Bay

Red-Necked Grebe?

Knot

Lapwing Redshank Ringed Plover

Reed Bunting

Purple Sandpiper

Knot Flock Return 24/1/10

Been all over today, we started at St. Mary's. On the rocks in the north bay, we had 3 oystercatcher, 1 redshank, 2 ringed plovers and 1 knot. When we went for a closer look at the knot, we saw a flock of 30 grey birds flew in which turned out to be knot as well. We were excited to see that the knot had returned to St. Mary's after we thought they weren't going to. After a good start, we headed for big waters. The feeders were packed with chaffinch, siskin, reed bunting, blue tit etc. The siskins were very happy to stay on the same feeder for almost a hour and a half. They were not letting the goldfinches on in a hurry! After spending a lot of time there, we moved to Killingworth Lake on the way home. 5 goosanders were present, along with 3 pochard and a goldeneye naming a few. The usual stuff was there too of course! A very good day birding!

Knot Goosander

Common Gull SiskinChaffinch

A nice surprise at Killingworth Lake

We went to Killingworth Lake and St. Mary's today. We went to look for the goosander at Killingworth and when we got there, we saw them straight away in all different places. As we were walking along to watch a male goosander at the other end of the lake, I was watching the ducks sitting on the bank next to the road and then a smaller duck left the bank and swam past us within 3 feet. I knew as soon as I saw it that it was a female mandarin duck. It was brilliant to watch it in the water then it climbed onto the bank again in front of us. After getting loads of photos of it, we went to see the goosander and then off to St. Mary's. The tide was nearly in at St. Mary's and there was very little rock but there was still quite a variety of waders. These included over 50 ringed plover, redshank, turnstone, curlew, oystercatcher and also 3 knot which were a little different. A nice end to the day!

Mandarin DuckGoosander Group of Waders: Top Left (Ringed Plover) Middle Top (Dunlin) Top Right (Redshank) Front (Knot)