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 weeks worth of birding

I've had some interesting sightings during my travels this week starting with a pair of buzzards over the Snowy Owl pub in Cramlington. A fairly unsuccessful visit to St. Mary's resulted in a pair of greylags on the pond and a reed bunting. No sign of the garganey this time. Driving through Killingworth on Saturday morning we saw the short-eared owl hunting over it's usual field but when we went later, it wasn't there.

I visited Washington WWT today with my grandparents hoping to see the avocets. And sure enough there they were along with 20+ shelduck and a heron with a chick. A visit to the feeders revealed the usual birds such as bullfinches, chaffinches and blue tits although I was surprised to see a reed bunting on the feeder. Also there was a chiffchaff as we were walking around the reserve but it was too far off for a photo.

Avocet Chaffinch

Shelducks

Reed Bunting

Lapwing