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!

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...

two gulls with white wings

I had two white winged gulls today. One of which got the pulse really racing as I was visiting the Scotia to set up the bird boxes. It flew past me and all I got on it was a gleaming white pair of wings. When I followed it round the corner I was disappointed to be confronted by this monstrosity - an all white herring gull...

Apologies for the quality of the video - I only had my phone with me.



Later in the day though this little beaut flew past me and the monstrosity was forgiven. I've now seen lesser black-back, mediterranean and Iceland gulls on patch before I've seen kittiwake...

More on colour ringed BH's

Got some great feedback from Calum Campbell on the ringed BH's from the other day. Two were so recently ringed that the ringing details hadn't been passed on yet, but the other two came with interesting (if a little sedentary!) histories - note that one was originally ringed in 2004.

2XIK)	ET73895	5	Dee, opposite Duthie Park	28/02/2004	RD/IL/RR/EW (Metal Only)	N
(2XIK)	ET73895	6	Dee, Duthie Park Lower Pond	02/01/2007	RD	S
(2XIK)	ET73895	6	Dee, Duthie Park Lower Pond	16/12/2007	RD	S
(2XIK)	ET73895	6	Dee, Duthie Park Lower Pond	29/11/2008	RD	S
(2XIK)	ET73895	6	Dee, Duthie Park Lower Pond	24/11/2012	RD/EF	S
2XIK	ET73895	6	Dee, Ruthrieston Bothy	02/01/2013	RD/EF (DARVIC ADDED) 9+years old	R
2XIK	ET73895	6	Rive Dee, Opposite Duthie Park	27/10/2013	RD	S
2XIK	ET73895	6	Rive Dee, Opposite Duthie Park	09/11/2013	RD	S
2XIK	ET73895	6	Rive Dee, Duthie Park Pond	23/11/2013	RD	S
2XIK	ET73895	6	Rive Dee, Duthie Park Pond	08/12/2013	RD	S
2XIK	ET73895	6	Rive Dee, Duthie Park Pond	28/12/2013	RD	S
2XIK	ET73895	6	Rive Dee, Duthie Park Pond	03/01/2015	Mark Lewis	S

2XID	ET72086	6	Dee, Bridge of Dee Burger Van	10/12/2012	RD,EF,JW	N
2XID	ET72086	6	Dee, Ruthrieston Bothy	15/12/2012	RD	S
2XID	ET72086	6	Dee, Ruthrieston Bothy	30/12/2012	RD	S
2XID	ET72086	6	Dee, Ruthrieston Bothy	26/01/2013	Jim Quilter (PHOTO)	S
2XID	ET72086	6	Dee, Ruthrieston Bothy	28/12/2013	RD	S
2XID	ET72086	6	Dee, Ruthrieston Bothy	11/01/2014	RD	S
2XID	ET72086	6	Dee, Ruthrieston Bothy	13/12/2014	RD	S
2XID	ET72086	6	Dee, Ruthrieston Bothy	19/12/2014	John Chapman	S
2XID	ET72086	6	Dee, Ruthrieston Bothy	01/03/2014	Mark Lewis	S

 

January 5th, the mighty Quinn!

After the news broke of a harlequin on the Don after dark on Sunday, I went into a bit of a fluster hoping it would stick around and hoping I'd be able to twitch it before work today - especially after the photos were put on line, showing it to be a 1st summer bird. First light today (well, actually well before first light!) found Will Miles and I pacing along the River Don in Seaton Park, enjoying dipper, kingfisher and an otter before getting the call that Nick Littlewood had relocated the bird.

After a short walk along the river (literally about 30 yards from where Will and I stopped and turned round 20 minutes before...) there it was, perched up on rocks by the river before taking to the water and feeding, sometimes down to a range of about 15 metres. With frame filling views through the scope revealing plenty of that steely blue plumage coming in around the face, it was an absolutely stunning little bird. Sneaking through the rapids here and there, briefly popping out of the water onto a rock and then feeding some more before flying up the river, it entertained us for a good half hour. Encouragingly, it looked nice and settled - with the tooing and froing up and down the river probably quite natural behaviour. Here's hoping it hangs around for some time, developing it's breeding plumage and being as showy in better light than today!

Unringed...but not particularly wary!

After that the patch seemed a little tame this lunchtime, although the river duck theme was continued with my first patch goosander of the year. 

Jan 3rd - colour ringed black-headed gulls

Spent some time around Duthie park in the morning with the intention of photographing gulls (Claire) and trying to read some colour rings (me). Managed to get 4 black-headed gull 'combos', all of which are presumably locally ringed birds. There was also a white ringed bird that got away before I managed to get anything on it - possibly one from a different ringing scheme.

Ring numbers were: all LL

2XIK
2XVK
2XVJ
2XID