Late September in Northumberland

Having left it too late to book into Spurn for a few days this autumn, myself and Dave Craven hatched a plan to head somewhere else on the east coast; Northumberland seemed like a good, under-birded option, but unfortunately Dave tore a ligament in his shoulder so had to bail. I decided to go anyway, as winds from the SE looked promising... So I booked two nights in the bunkhouse at Beal - just a few minutes drive from Lindisfarne.

Heading up the A1 early on Tuesday I got snarled up in traffic around Newcastle and was worried I was going to miss the window in the tides to cross over to Lindisfarne, so I headed to Low Newton instead, an area I knew a bit from a visit last spring. I spent two hours at the tree belt by the tin church, eventually hearing and then briefly seeing the mega elusive Red-breasted Flycatcher that had been found two days earlier. Single Pied Flycatcher, Spotted Flycatcher and Yellow-browed Warbler were more co-operative.

The tin church at Low Newton

Pied Fly

Spotted Fly

Yellow-brow

Heading down into the village and the dunes beyond, another YBW was in the trees of a back garden adjacent to the rear of the pub, but I didn't see much else of note - a couple of Spotted Redshanks and a Med Gull on the flash. 

I continued on to Bamburgh, birding the dunes east of the castle. There are a couple of willow clumps here, and I worked my way through their tangled midsts, with 2 YBW in the first clump and a third in the second clump (along with a Redstart). These aren't the birds they used to be, but still great to come across. By now it it was p*ssing it down and I was fairly wet, so I called it a day just before 6pm.

Dune scrub at Bamburgh

Tangled willows

YBW

The following day I was out onto Lindisfarne - my first time birding on the island. Beginning at the Snook, I bumped into two local birders, who were welcoming and gave me some good advice. There were two YBW and two Redstarts in the plantation here, with a Garden Warbler at the house (but I failed to see the Barred Warbler). Further into the Snook, at Half-moon Slack, the willows held another YBW, plus Redstart and Tree Pipit, but I couldn't find much else in this area, although 3 Redwing flew over heading inland and a Merlin dashed through.

Snook House

Half-moon Slack

Tree Pipit

Onward, I walked up Chare Ends (seeing another YBW and a Wheatear) into the north dunes and across to the Excavations. A Lapland Bunting flew over calling, and I also came across a very late a juvenile Cuckoo. Walking down Straight Lonnen and back out to the coast on Crooked Lonnen I didn't see much else until I got to the Lough, where there were 4 Whinchats, with 3 more Wheatears near the castle. Ending up in the village, there were 2 Pied Flys in the Vicar's Garden. News then came on of a Wryneck back at the end of Straight Lonnen in the dunes. 

Juv Cuckoo

Straight Lonnen

Wheatear

Heading back to the car to top up my water, I decided to go back to Snook House and plantation (which was very quiet - still no Barred Warbler), before going to look at the Wryneck. Bumping into the finder, one of the aforementioned locals, he gave me directions. I eventually located the broken green plastic chair which marked the area the bird had been favouring, but I couldn't find the bird itself. Annoyingly, the area was one I had walked through 3 or 4 earlier - I still need Wryneck for my self-found list! Neverthless, it had been a good day, and my personal totals were 1 Lapland Bunting, 4 YBW, 3 Redstart, 2 Pied Fly, 1 Garden Warbler, 1 Blackcap, 2 Willow Warbler, 3 Chiffchaff, 2 Goldcrest, 4 Wheatear, 4 Whinchat, 3 Redwing, 27 Song Thrush, 1 Tree Pipit and 1 Cuckoo - so not bad. 

The next day I had another wander on the island, deciding to bypass the Snook and instead walking up Chare Ends. I again couldn't locate the Wryneck, but the juv Cuckoo was still present; however, there was nothing of note in the Vicar's Garden. Time was ticking on, and with the window to cross back to the mainland fast approaching, I decided not to visit the Snook - which proved to be a mistake, with another Wryneck found by the other of yesterday's locals in the scrub by the carpark! Hey ho. 

The Vicar's Garden

I headed back towards Bamburgh via Budle Bay, where a Spoonbill was asleep - this came as a surprise, but had apparently been present for a few days. There were also hundreds of geese - Pale-bellied Brents, Pink-feet and Barnacles.

Spoonbill

At Bamburgh, I worked through the first willow clump where one of the YBW's was still present along with a Redstart, then seeing a tweet about a 'small white goose' which had gone south-east over Lindisfarne. Guessing this may have been headed to Budle Bay I dashed back there, but all I could find was a Bar-headed Goose, looking pale at range, in with the Barnies. However, photos suggested the original culprit was a white Barnacle. 

Bar-headed Goose (heavy crop!)

I returned to Bamburgh, but the only other bird of note was another Redstart. By now it was getting on for later in the afternoon, and having promised not to be back late, I headed home; however, I had also missed a Pacific Golden Plover which had been found in fields to the east of Straight Lonnen over high tide!

Bamburgh Castle - and plenty of habitat!

All in all a good trip, even with the dips and lack of any notable finds. I'll be back...

Late to the party

Opportunities for birding this autumn have been pretty limited - both bird finding/seeking and twitching. Of the two big 'uns of the month, the White-rumped Swift at Hornsea wasn;t there long enough, but the Grey Catbird in Cornwall, now present for over a week, had been eating away at me since it was found - or rather, since twitter was saturated with photos of it... 

Twitching Cornwall is not something I normally do - psychologically, it's too far, and it's not very green either... The last time I did so was in March 2007 with Dave Craven, when we spent a cold and sleepless night in the car at Stepper Point to connect with a Gyr Falcon, then seeing White-billed Diver on the Hayle and Dusky Warbler in Newquay later in the day.

So more than 10 years later, I could no longer resist another Cornwall twitch, this time solo - despite having a couple of lifts offered, I hadn't been able to get down prior to today due to family and work commitments - and I was beginning to think it was now or never.   

Setting off at 8.30 last night, I overnighted at Tiverton (this time in a Travelodge - much more civilised than the back seat of the car), and was on site at Treeve Moor just after 8.30 - and just after the bird had been showing quite well (I shouldn't have had that cup of tea in the hotel). However the Catbird showed well 20 minutes later or so, and again briefly on a further three occasions, and I left for home just after 11.30 (so that I could get back to give Freya her supper and bath). A Short-eared Owl was a bonus, and I enjoyed watching a Song Thrush, sat out in the open at 30m range, be identified as a Redwing by a fully kitted out birder. 

So worth it, definitely, but with views of the Catbird amounting to no more than a couple of minutes across two hours, and 12 hours sat in the car driving over 700 miles, I'm not planning to twitch Cornwall again any time soon. Unless it's something completely off the scale... a Varied Thrush (preferably fully pigmented) would do it...

Grey Catbird

Still quite a few people coming and going

Spurn and Suffolk

This year's autumn trip was reduced to two nights at Spurn with Dave Craven - instead of 2 weeks on Shetland. Given how cr*p this autumn has generally been, hitting a productive period of weather was always going to be a long shot, and so it proved, with winds continuing to be from the SW or W (going N/NNE for a short period) during our stay - birding in bright sun in a t-shirt never feels promising at this time of year... Hey ho. That said, it wasn't a complete disaster! 

Our first day (Monday 24th Sept) was actually our best. Whilst doing a bit of seawatching at Numpties in the morning (god I am out of practice...), Spurn's first Yellow-browed Warbler of the autumn started calling just to the north - for a moment I thought it was going to be someone playing a call on their phone, but there it was, in classic YBW habitat - a scrappy little sycamore. Very nice.

Yellow-browed Warbler - pic by Dave Craven

15 minutes later, and a thin 'seee' call overhead had us looking upwards. It took a moment for the penny to drop, but after the bird uttered a 'pix' call, and revealed itself as a chunky finch with big white wing flashes things clicked into place - 'Hawfinch!'. Also nice! And a few minutes after this, a Common Rosefinch was found within spitting distance at the Warren, feeding unobtrusively in amongst the Good King Henry (or something similar). And in fact, there were two. So, a good 40 minute spell.

Common Rosefinch - pic by Dave Craven

Things went a bit flat after that. There were few migrants around generally, although vis-migging at Numpties was fun, and produced a few bits including single Brambling on 25th and Lapland Bunting on 26th, amongst the Linnets, Meadow Pipits and Tree Sparrows, and seeing the likes of Sparrowhawk, Kestrel, Skylark and House Martin coming in-off was also fun. And back to seawatching, I had almost got my eye back in at the end of a couple of sessions - which produced small numbers of Manxies, Arctic Skuas, Bonxies, Red-throated Divers, 2 Little Gulls, and small numbers of Common and Sandwich Terns etc.. 

Sunset over the Humber - pic by Dave Craven

So that was Spurn. This weekend just gone, and we were back in Suffolk visiting my parents. I had planned to have an early morning session birding at Landguard on either Saturday or Sunday morning, plumping for the latter, with Northerlies forecast. Two hours really wasn't long enough, and best was a 1st W male Ring Ouzel.  

Bucket list bird

Who doesn't want to see a Snowy Owl? Ever since not seeing the Felixstowe bird back when ever that was, I've wanted to see one, although I've never been tempted to drive far, figuring one will turn up within striking distance eventually. Eventually was this Friday; of course I couldn't go then, what with work. However, with my parents up for the weekend, my suggestions of a family trip to Norfolk on Saturday were not taken seriously (they had, after all, just driven up from Suffolk). We did have a quick outing to Collingham on Saturday, though, where I finally caught up with some Smew for the year - two drakes and three redheads.

Sunday was Mothering Sunday, and we had both sets of family around. Everyone departed just before 4, and having shown Amy yet another picture of the Snowy Owl, she suggested I just go and see it, presumably so she'd get some peace and quiet. So I did. My worry was running out of daylight, althugh the A17 was relatively painless, so after parking up at the Snettisham RSPB carpark and yomping south I had the bird in my sights at quarter to 6. Snowy Owl! Phew. 

Snowy Owl

Snowy Owl

It showed nicely for the next 35 minutes or so, sat on the inner floodbank. It started to get a bit more animated as dusk fell, stretching its neck and head bobbing, then taking flight and dropping down behind the bank, before reappearing, which it did once more; it then flew past those few of us who were still lingering, swerving in flight at a rabbit, and then powering southwest along the floodbank on its huge wings. What. A. Bird. The consensus seems to be it is a first-winter female, based on the extent of dark barring, but I'm not going to pretend I know anything beyond the basics about ageing or sexing this species. 

The Wash at dusk

The Lizard

Our week in Cornwall at the end of May/start of June seems like a long time ago already. The Lizard is one of those places that every naturalist should visit, and I wasn’t disappointed. There is some fantastic heathland and maritime grassland habitat, and even as a non-botanist I spent some time searching out and identifying some of the peninsular's special plants (including several which occur no-where else in Britain). A few pics of these below.

Coastal grassland

Broomrape sp.

Upright Clover

The Lizard Point

Goonhilly Downs

Wild Chives

Early Marsh Orchid (incarnata)

Trackway near Goonhilly Downs

A  nice little damp patch

Windmill Hill Farm

Marsh Fritillary habitat at Windmill Hill Farm

Windmill Hill Farm

Thyme Broomrape at Kynance

Prostrate Broom

Flowery turf at Kynance

Gone over Spring Squill

Spring Sandwort

Hairy Greenweed

Kynance Cove

Spotted Cat's-ear

Early Purple Orchid

Fringed Rupturewort

Western Clover

Long-headed Clover

Rough Clover

Caerthillian Cove

Hairy Bird's-foot Trefoil

Grassland at Caerthillian Cove - clover central

A pool near Goonhilly Downs

Lizard Downs

Church Cove

Ivy (?) Broomrape

Wild Clary

The birding was generally sedate, although the fact that we found ourselves in the most southerly part of mainland Britain at the end of spring wasn’t a co-incidence. I spent the week with my ears pricked for the sound of a Bee-eater or Serin overhead, but had to make do with a self-found Red-footed Falcon - and a dodgy kite. The only other birds of note were 2 Chough (in flight at Lizard Point) and three Red Kites, plus several Cuckoos.

The only picture I could get of a Chough

Other wildlife included a couple of Small Pearl-bordered Fritillaries on the coast between Kynance and Caerthillian, and a Slow-worm at Windmill Hill Farm; the latter site also supports a Marsh Fritillary colony, but I couldn’t find any (not helped by sub-optimal weather).

Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary

Slow-worm

The Lizard is one of only two places in the UK where the rock serpentine occurs (part of the reasons the area is so botanically-rich). The other place is Unst, where I’ll be in just over three months time! But before that, our next trip is to South Africa, which will be a bit different from Cornwall I’m sure...