Durham, 5th April

What a brilliant spring day this turned out to be - nothing out of this world bird wise, but a beautiful day spent pottering around with family in the sunny wooded edges of Durham city. In the morning we took a rather convoluted journey down town via some woods where we enjoyed nuthatch, willow tit, great-spotted woodpecker, and great close up views of a couple of roe deer, that made Claire's day too. After lunch we had a few hours in the sun in the garden, allowing me to catch up with the comma that Dad had seen there a few days before - a garden tick and my first ever in Durham, I think.

 After a while it was time to head out to one of my favourite spots - and one of my first ever patches, I guess, Brasside pond. Brasside delivered the expected wildfowl, and a few less expected wildfowl in the form of 2 goldeneye and this group of 7 whooper swans. 

There was also a flock over 130 curlew in the back fields, calling willow tit, my first singing blackcap of the year, and a pair of displaying great crested grebes, that kept Claire and I entertained for a good half an hour at least.

Weardale, 4th April

After a Thursday drive down the road, and a Friday spent enjoying the kittiwake colony (and some of the shops too, I guess, in Newcastle), it was nice to get out into the countryside on the Saturday. Weardale was chosen, as it offers an opportunity to visit the Black Bull in Frosterly - but it also offered an opportunities to catch up with a white-tailed eagle (ringed as a pulli on Mull) that had been wondering around the area, as well as a great grey shrike that had done the decent thing and decided to stay in one place, in Stanhope.

We missed out on the eagle, which was hardly surprising as we gave it very little effort, but enjoyed good views of the great grey shrike, which is great as I see great grey shrikes much less frequently than I see white tailed eagles. What was noteworthy though were the number of birders that were up there looking - easily more on the durham moors than I'd see during a week on Ouessant. It was easter weekend I guess, and I reckon WTE must have been a welcome addition to many a Durham list.

There were other bits and bobs around of course, too. Lots of waders up on their breeding grounds making all of the right noises, and of course plenty of grouse. Red grouse were everywhere, and there were 9 black grouse feeding in fields near the Langdon Beck lek site. A red kite drifted over the moors here too, which was lovely, but as it passed I enjoyed wondering how I might have reacted to such a sighting had it been at a time when I was making more frequent visits to the area, maybe 25 years ago now!

There was also this rather attractive meadow pipit - I see warm 'whistleri' looking meadow pipits frequently in April on the Aberdeenshire coast, but they've never looked as good as this!

three come at once...

Having waited for over a week at the end of March for a new bird for the Patch Year List, it was with some relief that the floodgates opened a little on the 2nd. It started off with a flyby bar-tailed godwit in the morning, and ended nicely with a puffin and a sandwich tern lingering in Nigg Bay in the afternoon. It's possible that the floodgates were about to open, but then I went to Durham and got ill for a week so I guess I'll never know!

Late March

After the excitement of genuine migrants like littoralis rock pipits I was expecting big things for the end of the month. In reality though, it was a bit of a damp squib. No wheatears or other spring migrants were on show, apart from a couple of chiffchaffs around the sewage works. A female type stonechat on the north bank felt a little bit migranty one morning but in all likelihood could well have been the female from the south bank area having a bit of a wander. At least the redwing that was briefly at the battery one lunchtime was a mover. And really, that was it for the rest of March. All a little disappointing!

littoralis rock pipits, late March 2015

I've been interested in Scandinavian (littoralis) rock pipits ever since I knowingly saw my first one - a strikingly blue and pink bird feeding on the golfcourse at Girdleness, early one spring, probably in the early 2000's. Ever since seeing this bird I've paid much greater attention to the resident rock pipits, especially at this time of year, in an attempt to see another beauty like the first, and also with the intention of picking out some of the more subtle birds that might pass through.

I've failed miserably. I've come nowhere near anything like the first, and I've only ever had a few 'might have beens' in terms of the more subtle ones. This makes me think that they are actually rather uncommon in North East Scotland - a thought that is backed up by the text in Birds of Scotland, which states that they are regular in the south eastern counties but nowhere else, and also the North East Scotland bird reports.

Between 1974 and 2008 there are only 19 records of rock pipit that are assigned to littoralis - although every mention of this subspecies is caveatted along the lines of 'scarce, but hugely under-recorded'. Undoubtedly this is so - but I suspect that they are also pretty scarce as well. I reckon the boring looking ones must slip through the net very easily - but the more contrasting grey and pink birds are strikingly colourful, pale, and notably grey backed, even in flight. Surely people are noticing them, when they turn up?

All this makes the occurrence of a very obvious bird on March 22nd, and another bird joining it on 23rd more interesting to me, and a great opportunity to catch up with, and familiarise myself with this form.

Bird 1

Bird 1 is pretty streaky, with course flank markings and streaks right across the breast that merge into a smudge in the centre of the chest. The ground colour of the underparts is also much darker and warmer than the second bird. The grey on the upperparts appears to be restricted to the crown and on some coverts, but is quite obvious, as is the strong super, white median covert bar, and pinkish throat.

Bird 2

Bird 2 is a belter - almost slate grey upperparts with nice white wing bars and a decent whitish super. The flank streaks are neat and narrow, and set on a pale, cold ground colour. The throat is less intense pink than bird 1, but is a stunning pastel shade and almost streak free. It also seems to have much paler legs than the first bird but that may well be a function of the conditions the pictures were taken under.

Mid March patch gold

This is always the time when I get ahead of myself. "That wheatear will be hear any day now"...is the thought that runs through my head every morning, but in reality its often the very end of March or even the beginning of April when the first of the true migrants start to come in. It's a great motivator to get out at a time when the rewards are not always obvious though, and it certainly adds to the year list.

There are certainly signs of movement - long-tailed ducks are becoming regular, and red-throated divers more numerous. There has also been a bit of gull vismig. Common gulls seem to be trickling past, but black-headed gulls are more obvious, with a couple of deccent flocks noted passing north, including one of about 40 birds.

There has been a fair bit of patch quality, with further records of shelduck, rook, mistle thrush, yellowhammer, reed bunting, lesser redpoll, stock dove and golden plover all added to the list - talk about a fine selection of patch gold! There have also been a few pleasant surprises in the form of peregrine, and some genuine migrants like goldcrest, and a woodcock that came in-off on Monday 23rd. On top of all this there have been a couple of littoralis rock pipits - but they deserve a post all to themselves.

warming up

Not literally - it's been freezing - but certainly spring seems to have sprung as far as the birds are concerned.

The pomarine skua continues to linger offshore, but on the 7th it was upstaged by a chiffchaff (not often I'll say that...) at the sewage works. I'm pretty certain that the bird was new in to the sewage works, having specifically looked for overwintering chiffs in the new year and not seeing any. However, it's more difficult to say whether the bird was a genuine migrant or not - it could well have been flitting undetected on Tullos hill for the winter, and March 7th is a very early date for a 'new in' chiffer up here.

The 8th was also productive with plenty of pinkfeet on the move, 4 whooper swans, and perhaps best of all from a patch point of view, a northbound shelduck. Having noted that whoopers were being noted moving north over the previous few days I'd gone out specifically with this species in mind. It's good when a plan comes together. Which doesn't happen often...

The decent run continued on to the 9th, when 2 stock doves were noted flying north past the battery - still a really good bird patch wise, with possibly only 5 or 6 previous records and the vast majority of them coming from Nigg bay.

As the weather deteriorated through the week, so did the quality of the birding - early morning seawatches have failed to deliver, and a lunchtime seawatch on the 11th was only notable due to the close up views of a couple of rain covered ringed plover taking shelter behind a rock. You can see the rain on the birds feathers on the second photo.

Roll on the proper migrants...

the lull...

It's been a long period without any real 'movement through the crease'. For the remainder of February there seemed to be very little change at girdle ness, although the wheezing of greenfinches and the tinkling of linnets was an expected, but nonetheless welcome addition. As for the rest of the month, the highlight continued to be the otter, which showed from the office window with relative frequncy, and once in it's favoured area when I happened to be outside - so I finally got the opportunity to get some shots of it without having a murky window in the way.

As soon as February was out, the birds started picking up. Nothing remarkable but both greylag goose and pomarine skua have the potential to be tricky. A dunlin also put in an appearance, making it three additions to the patch yearlist in three days.

The first of the wildflowers are on show as well, as of the last week or so, with coltsfoot and lesser celandine both brightening the place up.

Comedown

The return to the patch has been, well, slightly less dramatic than the gull and boreal(ish) passerine fest of my trip to Norway! And I say this having had another look at the harbour otter on my first day back in the office.

As always with mid February, the first few signs of spring are appearing - most noticeably the presence, and singing of skylarks all over Girdle Ness. I have added a few species to the patch year list, such as siskin, mute swan and kittiwake (at last!), and the lunchtime high tides have returned a few good wader counts - 98 redshank being particularly notable. In spite of that though it's been desperately quiet...

Some stuff from Bergen

One of the best reasons to go on the G.O Sars IBTS cruise is that invariably you get a wee bit of time to spend in Bergen. Bergen is beautiful, and very cool, and as it's only once a year this is just about enough to take the edge off the price of the beer. It's also got a few decent birds. There is not much going on in the city centre, but there seems to be a peregrine in residence (or at least there was while I was there) and the pond in the city centre has attracted interesting gulls. The only gull of any interest while I was there was this common gull with some retained juvenile scapulars - so presumably a far northern, or possibly heinei - not that I noted any other features that point towards that subspecies on this bird. It's worth noting that these 'late developers' have been observed well in western Norway before - e.g. see here

Much more fun, and offering a very rapid contrast of city centre to the wilds, are the woods at the top of the funicular railway. Just beyond the inevitable gift shop, there are a few feeders that attract, among things, mega looking europaea nuthatches, borealis type willow tits,  and very northern looking treecreepers. Unfortunately, being in a forest, in Norway, in winter, in the rain, the light conditions were awful, which had the same knock on effects on my pictures. Still, that won't stop me posting them...

The willow tits were elusive, and very quick (i.e. too quick for me) at the feeders. Look how cold and grey this bird looks compared to British ones.

The male europaea nuthatches look utterly mega - those crisp white underparts contrasting with the rich, almost brick red rear flanks and UTCs. Females are a bit less striking - not sure I'd pick that as being any different if I saw it in Britain - although the breast does have a certain whiteness to it.

An awful shot but check out the frosty appearance, almost pure white underparts and bright white super that flares behind the eye and bleeds onto the hindneck and mantle.

The squirrels were quite confiding too...!

Caspian gull - G.O Sars, Feb 6th

What a massive surprise this bird was! It first appeared circling round the boat when we were mid survey - and appeared three times before disappearing (presumably into the melee behind the boat) for a few hours. It was incredibly striking in flight, but I wasn't convinced I had enough to nail an ID of such an off the radar spp. That set up a pretty tense few hours where we continued to survey but in reality all I wanted to do was look off the back of the boat! Fortunately it was still present when we stopped to trawl, and eventually it did the very decent thing and landed on the vessel.

It's been claimed as a first for Shetland - which is a little strange as it was at least 100 miles off Shetland (I think - must check though). It was definitely in Scottish waters though, which means it's a bit of a mega.

Doing a little digging, there are 4 records accepted between 2006 and 2009 (see here) and a further 3 reported to Birdguides after that - although 1 of those was only reported as a probable. That means that my bird is likely to be at the very most the 7th record for Scotland. I'll have that! Obviously it an SBRC rare, so here are the annotated pics that were submitted with the description.

White wingers on the Sars

One of the pleasures of doing winter IBTS surveys is that white winged gulls are occasionally attracted to the vessel, along with the many other large gulls, fulmars and gannets. Usually the Scotia does a lot better for white wingers (as indeed it did this time!) but with 7 different glaucs and 2 different icers were a pretty good haul. Funnily enough most of these were in the far north and not too far from Shetland.

Some shots from the G.O Sars cruise

Well it's fair to say that it's been an eventful couple of weeks on board the Sars - birdwise at least. And there are still a couple of days to go, so who knows what else might happen! Here are a few shots of the regular ship associates...

Withsails and I

The patch year list continues to develop as January progresses, with additions of little auk yesterday and meadow pipit today, bringing the months total up to 64. This is the highest score I've ever achieved in January, although thats a somewhat misleading statement as In he last 5 years I've never spent so much of this month at home. All that will soon change though as I'll be off to the G.O. Sars on Tuesday, meaning that Monday will be my last chance of the month to add some dross like kittiwake or skylark...

Still, it's been a good month - or at least it has ended will, with 2 otter sightings this week, along with little auk, med gull and iceland gull. It sounds like the icer ended up in Seaton Park as Phil Cruttenden had one there yesterday, a dark 1st winter - which is exactly how I'd describe mine (well, the dark bit anyway - I didn't see it well enough to try and age it)

Aside  from the meadow pipit, todays main 'interest' came in the form of an eider sporting a rather prominent pair of sails. It was displaying to a couple of females with 8 other adult drakes in the harbour, and as a result of being pretty distracted, showed really well. Aside from the sails, it showed pretty bog standard bill colour and frontal process structure that was well within variation for common eider. It's legs were a little on the yellow side - but then I didn't really note the leg colour of any of the other drakes.