Happy New Year!

Happy New Year all, this year I will be blogging mainly about my patch as I am in a patch yearlist competition with a few mates, so will be spending a lot of my time there! Most of my birding so far this year has been patch birding, with the exception of the Green-winged Teal twitch at Saltholme with Kieran which we eventually connected with! Other than that, not a whole lot to report apart from a new seawatching spot that I thought may be good, and it turned out that it was!

On the 13th, I visited my patch and went to the north end to Old Hartley, within 10 minutes of setting up my scope, I had picked out 20+ Fulmars, a Velvet Scoter and 2 Brent Geese flying by, and also 2 Black-throated divers, one Red-Throated Diver and a grebe sp. on the sea (probably red-necked from the brief views it gave). Other highlights so far have been Med Gull and lots of pink-feet (which I have looked through several times for bean goose, no such luck).

However today the cold weather reminded me why I love my patch so much, with one over due patch tick in the form of 9 yellowhammers, and 6 patch yearticks with wigeon, drake pintail on the wetland and the sea which was a nice surprise! Also got a male peregrine over the wetland early on, and Alan Curry later told me it took a woodcock over the fields! I also got another text off Alan telling me about only my second patch merlin in the fields sitting down with it's back to us, showed well for me before flying low over the field and putting all the yellowhammer, skylarks and meadow pipits up! 

Poor Phone-Scoped Record Shot of the Pintail (trust me, it is one!).

However my overall highlight of the day was late on in the day after I came back to see if I could find any white winged gulls in the roost, and as I arrived, a 1st-winter Glaucous Gull flew over me, MEGA! Great patch yeartick and self found as well! Takes me up to 72 for the year on patch so far. 

Probably the same bird as this one in November?

Welcome to Winter!

This morning I revisited St. Mary's after a rush down after sixth form yesterday to catch up with my second black redstart for patch, only my 4th in Britain, and it was a very good decision! Met up with Alan Curry in the south bay around half 8 and immediately it put in an appearance, spending most of it's time on the cliff and seaweed darting backwards and forwards. After a while, I went off and left Alan to photograph it and checked out the rest of the patch, with very little around apart from the 'resident' great-spotted woodpecker. 

So after a while, I decided to go back to see the redstart again and this time, it showed like a dream. I found by just sitting a rock and allowing the bird to get used to me, it was very tame indeed, coming within 5 feet at one point, and posing for me in the morning sun. Morning well spent!

What a stunner!

Also spent some time photographing these guys on the rocks...

Patch Tick Brute...

This morning my grandma and me went to Seaton Common to try and shake off a bogey bird of mine in the form of Caspian Gull. Meeting up with Michael Murphy, Harry Murphy and Andrew Kinghorn, I was greeted by mist and thick fog allowing me no views whatsoever of any gulls. After about an hour of waiting for the fog to lift, I received a phone call from Alan Curry (never good if I can't get to St. Mary's quickly) telling me that he had found a Glaucous Gull on the rocks near the first car park. So a quick change of plan saw us getting some lunch at Saltholme then heading back for St. Mary's. On arrival at 3 o'clock, I headed straight for the gull roost where I assumed it would be, and after about 10 seconds of looking I found it, what a brute!! I was thrilled to re-find it and finally patch tick it! Dan McGibbon turned up soon after and also saw it, a lifer for him which made it even better! 

Glauc.

Bee-Eater 3/11/12

After getting a call off Andrew and Kieran this morning, I had soon roped my dad into taking me to seaburn for the bee-eater. Setting off at half 1, we were at Seaburn for quarter past 2 and the bird showed wonderfully for the hour we were there, catching wasps and sitting on the aerials 15 feet away. Amazing bird!

Bee-Eater

Seawatching Weekend

After seeing the movement of little auks on Saturday, I decided to do some seawatching on Sunday morning. I was joined by Alan Jack and Steve Wales for a very good session, this is the totals:

Little Auk - 54
Teal - 100
Common Scoter - 84
Wigeon - 30
Red-Throated Diver - 14
Goldeneye - 3
Shelduck - 4
Long-Tailed Duck - 2
Red-Breasted Merganser - 7
Great Northern Diver - 1

So after that session, I decided to get up early this morning and go seawatching again, this time accompanied by Dan McGibbon. Michael and Joe joined us for the last hour or so, here are our totals for today:

Little Auk - 16
Common Scoter - 110
Red-Throated Diver - 14
Fulmar - 1
Shelduck - 1
Red-Breasted Mergasner - 1
Goldeneye - 3
Peregrine (Chasing starling over the sea) - 1
Great Northern Diver - 2
Long-Tailed Duck - 1
Great-Crested Grebe - 1
Woodcock - 1

Recent Sightings 9/9/12 - 22/9/12

 Baird's Sandpiper and Sanderling at Seaton Snook 9/9/12

 Peregrine at Seaton Snook 9/9/12

 Very Showy Ringed Plover at St. Mary's 22/9/12

 Short-Eared Owls continuing to show well at St. Mary's tonight! 22/9/12

 Snow Bunting at The Brier Dene car park, amazed to find this bird in September! 20/9/12

 St. Mary's Yellow-Browed Warbler showing well on and off this morning.

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