January 22 2012

First stop this morning after collecting Alan, was North Shields Fish Quay, where there were two Iceland Gulls on show for us.

This first Winter was a bit elusive and this was the best I could get

This bird is a near adult…

A Grey Seal wasn’t in the least bit bothered by all the fuss about the white-winged gulls…

Further up the coast, the goose flock was at Maiden’s Hall, but again very distant. So we went to Chevington, where I did a bit of dodgy-scoping, with my new point and shoot, through Alan’s scope. Two Bewick’s Swans (later six were claimed). We had a good scan of the area before we left, but apparently it wasn’t good enough; an hour after we left, there was a White Stork here!

So, we arrive at the road down to Fenham le Moor, and there is a sizeable small passerine flock flitting through the hedges. A closer look reveals that nearly all of the birds are Yellowhammer, Greenfinch and Linnet, with smaller numbers of Tree Sparrow and Reed Bunting.

Looking over Fenham Flats from the hide was no good; the tide was all the way in, and very little was on view, other than Common Shelduck and a Guillemot in front of the hide!

We stopped at Harpers Heugh on the way to Budle Bay. The geese were off in the distance, but we could pick out Barnacle, about two hundred and a handful of Pink-feet. At Budle Bay, it was almost bird-less, the tide was that high; five Red-breasted Merganser was it!

Stag Rocks next, where I couldn’t resist a black and white shot of the castle!

The sea was fairly rough, so finding birds was hard work. A single Red-throated Diver, four Long-tailed Duck and thirty Common Eider. On the rocks eighty-ish Purple Sandpiper were roosting.

As there are white-winged gulls everywhere this year, we stop at Seahouses on the way back, just for a look, you never know… We don’t find any, but we do have a Slavonian Grebe just off the harbour wall.

We leave here and head south, to try for the stork, but unfortunately it’s gone before we get anywhere near Cresswell, where it had turned up at. We hand around in the hope of the Whooper Swans coming in to roost (they don’t) and while we wait we have a Short-eared Owl hunting the dunes. And that was it, it’s now dark!