A colourful Northumberland Park 28/9/11

Visited Northumberland Park on Tuesday to look for the mandarin, on this occasion I was unsuccessful but a visit back there yesterday produced a beautiful creature - a male mandarin at close range. It provided fantastic views and was happy enough for me to stand there and take photos of it for an hour. Eventually the mandarin flew north when a sparrowhawk flew through the area. There was also 2 grey wagtails dropped in as well.

Mandarin Drake

Rarity while ringing at Low Newton 25/9/11

Got up at 5:30 this morning to go to the weekly ringing session up at Low Newton. It was going well with just under 20 birds caught within the hour. Then Stewart brought a bird back that was initially put down as a reed bunting until Chris noticed it had a short wing length for a reed bunting and on closer inspection, it turned out to be a delightful Little Bunting. It was a pleasure to see such a rarity at such close range, you don't often get life ticks while ringing (my last one was a pied flycatcher at Low Newton last year) so to see this bird in the hand was a privilege.

What a cracker, unfortunately I left my camera at home so this was taken with my iPhone, so the photo doesn't do the bird justice.

Long-Eared Owl again 19/9/11

After Sunday's wonderful performance, I returned to Prestwick to see them again. This time the long-eared owl was there again and showing excellently well. Managed to see the whole bird with very little branches blocking the view, terrific!

Prestwick Carr Owls and a Strange Pintail 18/9/11

After reading many blogs about the short-eared and long-eared owls at Prestwick Carr, I finally gave in and went to see them. On arrival, I was greeted by 3 short-eared owls hunting over the fields. A fantastic county tick for me, then I heard the words 'long-eared owl' and made for the group of birders huddled around one spot near the bushes and sure enough, there was a beautiful long-eared owl sitting in the bushes with only a few branches blocking my view. A wonderful second county tick! I met up with Cain, Stephen, Morgan, Venetia, John and a few other birders for St. Mary's which made the trip even better.

Short-Eared OwlLong-Eared Owl

I was at St. Mary's on Wednesday which produced some unusual sightings such as this male-eclipse pintail which amazingly took off from the sea and landed on the grass next to me very briefly before flying back out to see. A very nice bird to see on patch, only my second.

Pintail

Arcot and Killingworth 1/8/11

After not going out for a while, I decided to pop down to Arcot to look for the grasshopper warbler after reading about it John's blog. As soon as we pulled up we could hear it reeling and sure enough, we saw it straight away sitting on top of the bush next to the track. As we got closer and closer, it continued reeling and let us get very close. Without disturbing the bird, I got plenty of photos and videos of it then left it to it's business. We looked for the little egrets that were reported as well but there was no sign of them. On our way back home, we stopped in at killingworth after seeing the little gulls last week, I went back with my camera. As we drove past, I could see both of them with the terns right next to the road so we parked the car and walked along. They provided excellent views I have never had of little gulls before. A successful day birding!

Grasshopper Warbler

Little Gulls

There's a storm brewin'...

I've taken seawatching on as my new activity for the summer. I've just come back from St. Mary's in search of storm-petrels. I still had never seen any before today so was hoping to catch a glimpse of some. Caught up with the guys already in the hide, just managed to get a space between Simon and Tim just in time to see a flock of manx shearwater going past. Then within 20 seconds of setting up my scope, I saw a little black bird fly across and I lost it straight away again. After a few seconds it reappeared showing off it's white rump beautifully, then I knew I had my first storm-petrel. From 17:15 - 19:00, I saw 18 storm-petrels, 11 manx shearwater, 2 red-throated diver, 9 common scoter and a bar-tailed godwit. The storm-petrels, as well as being lifers can also go down on my patch list along with the red-throated diver which takes my St. Mary's total up to 106.

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