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.

Morton Lochs, Tentsmuir NNR, Fife

 Pastures new on Wednesday, we drove up to Morton Lochs. We knew it would be quiet birding wise, it's just that time of year! However we had only been there 5 minutes and this chap turned up:

We later saw two more on our walk through the forest.

Otherwise as I said very quiet, a few birds about:

Blackbird,

Chaffinch,

Dunnock

as well as Mallard, Little Grebe, Mute Swan, Moorhen, a couple of Bzzards, Greenfinch, Heron and a Treecreeper.

A few small things that stayed still long enough to photograph, which was nice;

A Ringlet Butterfly,

Common Blue Damselfly

and a Meadow Brown Butterfly.

A nice day out was had by all! 

Eagles, and Otter and a Load of Other Stuff!

 I can't believe that I haven't posted for over a month, we have been so busy, a couple of  weeks away, decorating and getting on with life. Our first week away was down in Staffordshire and family time so very little birding, just a few things from a visit to Chatsworth House:

Our other week away was on the Isle of Mull, this was our third time of trying to get to the island, we had originally booked for spring last year, but we all know what happened then! Then we had re-booked for last autumn, but then lock down hit again. So the only time we could fit in was the last week in June, not ideal, as there were very few sea birds about, but we still clocked up 60 species on the island, plus another couple on our travels there and back.

So I won't go into any great detail but here are some highlights:

I'll start with our only Otter sighting, we hadn't quite given up, but we had to wait until our last day! No apologies for all the photos, I did take loads!

So lets see some Eagles!

Unlike the Otter above they didn't get so close, also although we did see Golden Eagles all the photos are of White-tailed Eagles, the Goldie photos were rubbish as they were too high!

These were at Loch Na Keal,

Now on Ulva,

and one at Grasspoint.

We saw at least one Eagle every day, the most was four!

Now for some Tourist Eagles, or more usually known as the Buzzard 😂 Starting with a Buzzard chick on the nest at Loch Na Keal,

then various sightings out and about.

Staying on the raptor theme, we saw plenty of Kestrels, but didn't get any photos, but this Sparrowhawk cam to inspect the bird feeders outside our digs dining room window:

Then of course we saw may Hen Harriers, although very elusive on the photo front, they were all quite distant or I wasn't ready for a photo before they disappeared, this is the best I managed of a Male on Ulva:

Talking of the feeders they were very busy with loads of Siskin, Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Greenfinch, House Sparrow, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Great Spotted Woodpeckers, Feral Pigeon, Collared Dove, the occasional Coal Tit, one sighting of as Lesser Redpoll and Rabbits.

Siskin

Siskin & Chaffinch

Siskin

Rabbit

Chaffinch

Elsewhere, we saw Linnet, Whitethroat, Lapwing, Common Sandpiper, Common Tern, Eider, Heron, Skylark, Meadow Pipit, Rock Pipit, Oystercatchers, Red Breasted Merganser, a Cuckoo being chased by a Kestrel, Stonechat, Pied Wagtail galore, a couple of Grey Wagtail and of course the Corvids: Hooded Crow, Rook and Jackdaw.

Pied Wagtail

Jellyfish

Linnet

Ulva Ferry

Chaffinch & Great Tit

Grey Heron

Oystercatcher

North Beach, Iona

Skylark

Meadow Pipit

Starling

House Sparrow

Female Stonechat

Male Stonechat

Lapwing

Common Sandpiper

Common Tern

So this has ended up a bit longer than I planned, but never mind, it was fun doing it!