A Birding Trip to Northumberland - Last Instalment Honest!

 Our next day out was to the National Trust at Wallington, we don't visit the house, we only do that on the first visit to a new NT place. The main attraction here are the great woodland and river walks, the fabulous gardens and a great hide in the woods.

We spent about an hour in the hide, before walking way to far in the heat! It brought us believe it or not our first Nuthatches of the year, a rare bird now we live north of Edinburgh.

A Treecreeper mad a brief visit, but I only managed to get one fleeting shot:

Apart from these there were visits by Great Spotted Woodpecker, Siskin, Grey Wagtail, Coal, Blue & Great Tits, Dunnock, Chaffinch and a young Willow Warbler. Elsewhere were Canada Geese, Coot, Moorhen and Little Grebe. We had hoped to see a Dipper on the river walk, we did last time, but not this time.

The next day was another boat trip, out to Couquet Island, another sea bird colony, there are no landings allowed

but good views again of Puffin and Terns and especially Roseate Terns. This is there only breeding site (at time of publication! 😂) in the UK.

Locating the Roseates among the Common and Arctic Terns wasn't easy, but they have their own nest sites, birds of a feather and all that. But I do have a couple of photos:

So what makes them Roseate? If the sun had been shining and the angle right, you would see a pinkish flush to the chest, otherwise in Summer they have an almost complete black beak, unlike the Sandwich Tern, that is bigger and has a yellow tip to the beak:

The Arctic Tern has a full red beak and short red legs:

unlike the Common Tern which has a black tip to the beak and longer red legs:

Here endeth the Tern lesson. 😄

But when they are flying like this, identification is pretty difficult:

Of course we can't forget the Puffins;

Oystercatcher

and Turnstones.

There was the odd RSPB Warden too (Covered in poo!):

A young seal came and paid the boat a visit:

I could add lots more of the Puffins and Terns, but I'll leave it at that for now. On our way back into Amble Harbour up the River Coquet, some Female Goosander swam by:

Followed by an Eider Creche.

Let me think what next.... ah yes, after the boat we went back to a much quieter Cresswell, had the obligatory ice cream, then spent a while ay Cresswell Pond in the hide. This was much better than the last visit, with the start being a Spoonbill, although it wouldn't come anywhere near the hide, this was the best I could do in again hazy conditions:

In addition there was a Spotted Redshank, a Golden Plover dropped in briefly and 3 Avocets, all adding to our tally for the year.

Here's one of the Avocets being shy:

The starlings performed again, not quite a murmeration though.

Our final day out, is something we love doing when in Northumberland. Our walk from Craster to Dunstanburgh Castle, usually in sunshine, but the weather was against us this time:

As you can see a sea mist was in. but still a great walk and it's worth going into the castle to get out the small cliff the other side for these beauties:

Fulmars, possibly my favourite sea bird.

Mustn't forget the Kittiwakes though:

Then to wrap things up some Dolphins put in an appearance, they were quite a way out in the murk, so I apologise for the photos:

Oh and finally some 'baby' Swallows in the caste archway

and a farewell to Northumberland

A Birding Trip to Northumberland - The Farne Islands

 So, as I said in my previous post we couldn't land on the Farnes this visit, so we opted for a two hour cruise around the islands instead and actually it was great, we did miss being dive bombed by the Terns, but didn't miss them drawing blood, even when wearing a hat!

We had some great views of the Terns, Kittiwakes, Shag and of course Puffins, so here are a few of our pics (Sorry there's so many):