Canny Weekend

A few highlights from the weekend:

 Cracking female Scaup at Killingworth Lake.

 Purple Sandpipers at St. Mary's.

Curlew at St. Mary's.

Male Blackcap in the Garden.

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

A life tick day!

Today we were looking for a life tick - snow goose. We started of the day at Holy Island for the bearded tit. We watched for about 30 minutes and after no luck we went back to the car to beat the tide. On the way back we saw 3 sparrowhawks, a kestrel and a peregrine which was lovely to see after no bearded tit! On the way off the island, we saw a baby seal lying in the sun on the sand really close to the causeway which was lovely to see. Next we headed to Budle Bay. Unfortunately, the tide was right in and everything was on the sandbanks miles away. That wasn't much good so we went onto the best place of all - Stag Rocks. First we went to the rock itself to see 60 purple sandpiper which was brilliant and very photogenic. Next we scanned the sea after being told there was 2 slavonian grebes. I scanned it with my scope and saw them straight away. Two birds birds which were slavonian grebes. While we were watching them, I saw a little black and white bird and when I showed my dad, we decided that was the black guillemot that had been around for a while. We also got told there was 3 red-throated divers. SO we looked for them and eventually I did see 1. And right at the end of the sea watch, I saw a duck with a black and white head flying in towards the shore and when it landed I identified it as my first long-tailed duck. A very good session of sea watching in a new spot! And on the way out we saw a Brent goose fly past the shore which was very close but I only saw it at the last minute so no photos but good purple sands! No snow goose but better!

167 - LT Duck

168 - Slavonian Grebe

Purple Sandpiper Grey Seal