A Birding Trip to Northumberland

 We made a return visit to Northumberland after a gap of 4 years. We just can't believe it was that long ago! This is the latest in the year we have ever visited, so apart from adding Puffins and hopefully Little & Roseate Terns to our year list, we had no great expectations.

Just before we went we tried to book on to the Farne Islands for our 'usual' visit, but unfortunately the National Trust were still limiting numbers to Inner Farne and the two landings a day were both fully booked for the duration of our stay. So we opted for a two hour Seabird Cruise around the islands, but more of that later!

We started our visit with a day at the Hauxley NR run by the Northumberland Wildlife Trust. Shall we say what a change in four years! The 'new' visitor centre, although closed, looked great, be nice to return sometime and check it out properly. It provided us with a first for the UK, a Ruddy Shelduck. It gave us distant views and in the direct sunlight poor photos, but for the record:

We clocked up 39 species for the day, not a huge amount, but not bad for the latter half of July. A close up of a male Pheasant in the sun was nice,

along with a Tree Sparrow.

We thought this Heron was a garden ornament it didn't move at all for ages.

Little Grebes swam past the hide, always nice.

Of course as you might expect loads of Geese, both Greylag and Canada.

Other highlights were a couple of Little Egrets, Common, Arctic and Sandwich Terns.

After leaving the reserve and having done the circular walk, in blistering heat, with no shade on the homeleg, we welcomed getting in the car and putting the aircon on full blast and had a short drive down to Cresswell for an Ice Cream. In all the years we have never seen anything like it, everyone from within miles must have decided to go to the beach! The track to Druridge pools was overflowing with cars and rubbish and the road on to Cresswell was also packed with parked cars, almost making it impossible to get through, but we did and managed to park at the Ice Cream shop for 15 minutes while we had our treat and watched for Dolphins. Needless to say none were seen. 😞

So we made the tortuous way back through the throng of cars, stopping at Cresswell Pond, miraculously finding a parking space. (It was getting to early evening, so thankfully some people were leaving for their tea!)

We popped in to the hide, it was pretty quite apart from Curlew, Dunlin, Lapwing and tons of Starlings:

The following day we stayed local, our digs were in Amble, so we decided to amble in Amble, look at the Market and check the place out. 

We did manage to see Shelduck, Curlew, Eider, Goosander, Cormorant, Sandwich Tern, Common Tern, Arctic Tern loads of Redshank and a single Little Tern. This was a bonus as we didn't manage to fit a walk in from Beadnell to the Little Tern colony during our stay.

Our next day was to be the aforementioned trip out around the Farne Islands, so I'll cover that in the next post.

Northumberland Pilgrimage - Part 2

A bit of a delay in writing this I am working near Derby at the moment and haven't had a lot of spare time, in fact we haven't done any birding at all since then, so August is going to be a lean month apart from a couple of trips we have planned in a couple of weeks time.

So on to Northumberland, where was I......

Ah.. I forgot one thing from the previous post, we stopped at East Chevington NR on the way back the previous evening for Marsh Harriers and were duly rewarded:

Right to continue.... So we are onto the Thursday and again no luck getting out to the Farnes, again lovley sunshine but the wind was just to strong. So we decide to spend most of the day at Hauxley NR run by the Northumberland Wildlife Trust. It was a good day, nothing out of the ordinary, but a nice mix:
A good flock of Curlews

 Shelducks, with chick

 Shelduck Chick doing a bit of gardening

 Pheasant

 Terns having a wash, there's a Sandwich Tern lurking in there as well:

 Little Grebe and chick

 More Shelducklings:

 We dropped down onto the beach for lunch, there were plenty of Oystercatchers about foraging, this one was getting its head right in:

 Plus plenty of Terns passing through taking lunch back to their partners or chicks:

We do usually see plenty of Tree Sparrows here, but not today, good job we saw them over at Cresswell the day before. In addition to what I've shown in the pics, there were plenty of Redshank, Grey heron, Canada & Greylag Geese, Mallard of course, Tufted Duck, Coot, Moorhens, Lapwing, Black and Bar Tailed Godwit, Mute Swan, Dunlin, Swallow, Sand & House Martin and a few Warblers. Not too shabby!

After Hauxley we headed back but stopped at Druridge Pools again to see if we could get better views of the Spoonbills. At first we thought they had gone, but we had timed it just right as they circled and lanaded:

After watching them for a while we headed out onto the dunes as we could see a few people sea watching and we amazed at a couple of black 'slicks' about half a mile out, so we  got the scope out to look and saw that the sea was covered in a what I can only describe as shoals of Common Scoter. A great addition for the day.

After that we headed to the far two hides and looked back over to where the Spoonbills were now settling down. We immediately found a group of about 5 Snipe, some Ringed Plover, Redshank and a couple of Little Stint.

We popped into the next hide but decided not to stay as there was Swallows nest over the door and we didn't want to worry the parents, I did take a quick snap though:

So the next day was time to drive home and we hadn't made it out to the Farnes, but we decided that if the wind was OK and the boats were running, we would go anyway and get home late.

So if I do another post, you will know if we made it!

TTFN.

A Northumbrian Odyssey - Part 3 - Here and There

So how can you follow the Farne Islands, well the answer to that will be the next blog after this........
But for now you will have to wait and put up with Tuesday to Friday.

Whilst yesterday was a real birding day (plus a boat trip!) the following days are about getting out and about and around the coast.

Cragside
The weather didn't look so great for Tuesday so we went National Trusting to Cragside near Rothbury. We did have a major disaster! Once we got there we missed the Car Park that I wanted to use and ended up on a circular drive around the estate (which is huge!) so we decided to stop at a nice scenic spot and have a coffee... This is the disaster bit. My rucksack with the three flasks wasn't there, it was still sitting nice and cosy back in the shack at Seahouses. So we got back in the car legged it around the rest of the drive straight to the Tea Rooms and ordered 2 Americanos!

Anyway enough of that, there are some fantastic walks at Cragside through the pines and so on. There are Red Squirrels there, but this was our third visit and no sign! Birdlife was pretty sparse too! We saw plenty of Finches and Corvids, Robin, Tits and Pied Wagtail, but the highlight was a Grey Wagtail. I haven't told Tina yet but having read a post on the Northumbrian Birding forum (Birds Forum) somebody saw Crossbills there the same time we were there.... ahhhhhh!

Beadnell & Long Nanny Reserve
We decided to leave the car parked up on Wednesday and take a 'little' walk from Seahouses to the Long Nanny National Trust reserve to see the Little Terns, and anything else on the way.

The bad news was the wind was up today and blowing in our faces all the way, especially when walking along the beach at Beadnell Bay. On the way we picked up the usual shoreline birds, Eider, Oystercatcher, nesting Kittiwakes on some of the 'Cliffier' (is that a word?) stretches Shelduck and some large Starling flocks:

On approaching the reserve, you could see a cloud of Terns over the dunes and Beach.

As we got closer the river revealed a host of Arctic Terns and one Little Tern. We stopped for Coffee at this point (yes had the flasks today!) and just watched, picking up some Ringed Plover.  Suitably refreshed we carried on to the Wardens Hut and using their scope managed to find one more Little Tern. Apparently numbers are well down only 15 pairs this year. The aforementioned LT was to far away for a photo, but I took one anyway, for the record!

Yes its on top of the crate! The Little Tern nests have been raised as a spring tide is expected towards the end of the month.

So off to find another perch for lunch and then trek back. We didn't go along the beach this time but cut behind the dunes back to Beadnell and on to Seahouses. Got some interesting Linnet shots on the way:

We stopped for a rest at Beadnell and did a bit of Sea Watching, was surprised to see a Greylag fly past and some Gannetts a distance out. We then walked through the NWT Annstead Dunes Reserve heading back to Seahouses Golf Club before dropping back down to the beach, Plenty of Linnet and Pipit about, then to our surprise a Canada Goose flew by! Back on the beach we saw our first Dunlin of the trip:

So there ends Wednesday.

Hauxley & Cresswell NR
After a lateish start we drove down to Hauxley as we didn't want to do much walking today and fancied the idea of sitting on our backsides a bit.
We have been to Hauxley before and like it, some of the local birders though seem to be put off by all the Geese (Canada & Greylags - There are a lot it has to be said) But at this time of year its a bit of a Gosling fest, which is alright with us.

There was a flotilla of gosling, sailing by!

There is much more to Hauxley than that though, the Wardens were very friendly and there was a good range of other birds with chicks:

The Oystercatcher had a thing going with the female Mallard, every where they went she went too! Very strange.

Other highlights, were the Herons, Tree Sparrow, Willow Warbler, Lapwings, Dunlin, Redshank, Shelduck, Goldfinch, Reed Bunting, Coal Tit, Pheasant and a Knot:

So after an enjoyable few hours here we missed out Druridge and East Chevington and drove through to one of our favourite spots, Creswell, but what a shock! The water levels were really high and it appears they have lost all the Avocet nests (3), good job we are on the ball at Upton! There was nothing for waders. What a difference to our visit here last year. We did pick up some other ducks for the visit (Wigeon and Pochard) plus some Shelduck with chicks

Craster to Howick
So our last day and another walk, shorter this time. Just from Craster to Howick and back, last time we did this a couple of years ago we saw some Yellowhammer, but our hopes were dashed. We did however pick up a life first, one of those not rare birds that has eluded us a Lesser Whitethroat, so we were well chuffed. Sadly it was hopping about so much the two shots I manged were just a blur! We also picked up some 'common' Whitethroat, which I did get a decent photo of:

The walk also provide a great view of some Sand Martins nesting in a shoreline sandy cliff, we sat and watched for quite a while:

A Kestrel came to watch as well:

On the way back a Linnet showed quite well:

So that's Northumberland until next year, as Arnie would say, "We'll be back!"

What next....
Well the trip wasn't finished, we headed up to Edinburgh for the rest of the weekend to see our daughter with the bonus that she could spoil me for Fathers Day, then drive back Monday. But Fathers day is worth another post to the blog, so read the next one!

More Part 3 Photos