More St. Mary's Surprises 26/8/12

I decided to get up this morning to go in search of long-tailed skuas, got to the seawatching hide at 7am, but by 8:30am I had seen nothing of note apart from 4 arctic skuas so I decided to check the willows for warblers. On my way in, I spotted a reed warbler and a chiffchaff, a good sign! After seeing little else, I decided to try the stiles, and within 5 minutes of watching, I spotted a little warbler, and after getting it in the binoculars, I noticed a bright yellow supercilium and immediately thought yellow-browed, but on further inspection, it only had 1 wingbar, and just as I went for my camera, it flew off - damn! After searching for another 15 minutes, I heard a high pitched call, Greenish Warbler!! After running around the corner and over the stile,  I was photographing the little beauty! After reporting it and texting a few people, I had Mike Hodgson listening to my recording, and he confirmed my ID. Patch tick number 144, and my rarest yet!  

GREENISH WARBLER

Reed Warbler

Pied Flycatcher last week

2 surprises in 1 hour! 15/7/10

The Med Gull at Brier Dene car park has returned after only being away for 3 months! I photographed it in March and then again yesterday after the breeding season. After photographing it for a while we went onto Gosforth Park reserve. Amazingly, as soon as we got to the hide, there was a kingfisher sitting just outside it about 5 metres away! The luck was definitely on our side! While we sat there watching the kingfisher and the tern colony, there was a reed warbler feeding chicks very near the hide which were very photogenic. Some nice surprises which some great pictures to show for them.

Kingfisher at Gosforth Park Med Gull at Brier Dene. Top - July 2010, Bottom - March 2010 Reed Warbler