I blame Gary for this...

I found myself lying in the South Bay at St. Mary's yesterday afternoon studying every single pipit on the beach, after regularly reading about Gary's pipits at Newton. Fascinating stuff, and as Paul M said, "nothing like a bit of 'littoralis' action in Mid-March!". I managed to get 2 'littoralis' Rock Pipits, 3 Rock Pipits and a Meadow Pipit on the seaweed all at 10ft range. Here are some photos:

 One of Two 'Scandinavian' Rock Pipits. Note the overall light (peachy) colouring, strong supercilium and much whiter outer tail feathers.

 A nice 'normal' Rock Pipit!

Smart Meadow Pipit showing as well.

Decent Weekend

Saturday saw me and a few mates twitching the wintering Hoopoe in Dumfries. We didn't see it in 4 hours in summary! However we did get a drake Smew and Slav Grebe on Loch Soulseat. Just before we left, another mate of mine rang me to inform me that the unringed adult Red-Breasted Goose was showing at Loaningfoot with Barnacles again, and after considering a twitch of this bird last weekend, we soon left the Hoopoe site to look for it. After about an hour of looking from West Preston Farm, we finally picked it up in the flock, mega! It was a superb bird and one that I'd been looking forward to seeing for a long time!

Red-Breasted Goose (Copyright - Andrew Kinghorn) 

Then Sunday had me up at East Chevington after some Redpolls! 2 Mealies showed well on the feeders at the top end, and the Red-Necked Grebe was still present.

 Comparison between Mealy (Right) and Lesser (left)

 Mealy Redpoll

Lesser Redpoll

PATCH TICK!!

After visiting the patch this morning and seeing very little apart from 2 Snow Buntings North, A phone call from Simon P and Alan C this evening had me panicking and sprinting from my house to the South Bay in 5 minutes flat, the words 'Juvenile Iceland Gull in the South Bay showing well' was all I needed to hear before I was out the house and within 5 minutes I was watching it, what a beast!! LONG overdue patch tick after missing a couple in the past, I was delighted with this one! Thanks to all that got in touch to let me know about it.

Iceland Gull

Other sightings from the past few days:

 Holywell Dipper

 Snow Buntings at Blyth

Local Willow Tits

Aurora!

A text from Dan came at 9 o'clock last night to tell me that the Northern Lights were on show from Whitley Bay Beach, but were currently faded. Grabbing my camera and rushing down, they soon re-appeared and after watching them for an hour, 100 photos later, I was still in shock at watching the Aurora Borealis from St. Mary's!! A bucket list tick!

Iceland Gull

FINALLY, A TWITCHABLE WHITE-WINGER IN NORTHUMBERLAND THIS YEAR!

After dipping it on Sunday, I thought about going looking for the Iceland Gull at Tynemouth again, when I got a call about a young Glaucous Gull at the Fish Quay. It gave me the run around for a couple of hours, until I got another call saying that the Iceland Gull was back on the Boating Lake, and I got it this time! After watching it for 10 minutes, it flew east and ended up at the Fish Quay, and then it became obvious that the earlier reported Glauc was this bird, a rather dark juvenile Iceland when it flew made it confusing at a glance!

Winter North Tyneside at it's best!

Few photos from the last couple of weeks, no need to leave North Tyneside!

 Glossy Ibis at Tynemouth, first for North Tyneside yesterday!

 Scaup still showing very well at Killingworth Lake.

 White-Fronted Goose at Holywell (just out of North Tyneside)

'Central Asian' Lesser Whitethroat at Tynemouth.

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.