yankee invasion

After a making a bad choice to go to see newcastle humiliating defeat to hull on saturday time was running out to see a lifer at cresswell,would that special wader still be around on the sunday

I had a bit of spare time before starting work at 3 o,clock so i headed up to cresswell to see what was around, the place was certainly full of birders at at the hides and along the causeway so i stopped at the causeway and after a quick word with some friendly birders the news was positive the buff breasted sandpiper was still about after lining it up in the scope i slowly focussed in and what a beauty it was and it stayed put in the small area of dry sand on the north side of the causeway and as the light started to improve the views just got better and the sandy buff colours really stood out and the eyering gave the bird an attractive appearance .

A brief scan around the ponds did not disappoint their were waders everywhere a large group of dunlins was an ideal size comparison to pick out other waders like little stint and curlew sandpiper,

The whole ponds were full of wildlife a bird of prey lifted most of the waders it appeared to be a peregrine at first but when i got it in my bins it appeared less bulky and shorter winged and appeared to be grabbing something small from the air at 1 point.

Other waders on show were ringed plover, ruff, black tailed godwit,common sandpiper,curlew,

redshank in fact ive never seen so many waders in one day.

A black tern also put in an appearance and i finally got a good view of one of the pectoral sandpipers which had been seen in the area a bird so easy to overlook but had the distinctive breast streaks coming to a point.

this picture was given to me with err kind permission from a mr. s sexton alias boulmer birder

THE GREAT FLOOD

Managed to find time to pop back to caimbois today but the railway bridge area was full of work vehicles puting up a new fence so i went along to the estuary waders present were lots of redshank & dunlin a few ringed plover and best of all 3 knot
a redstart was also in shrubs nearby and a goosander on the water.
I then went up to castle island the island was covered in gulls hundreds of them
mostly common stuff as far as i could see.
there was a few migrants still knocking about a spotted flycather( new patch bird )and 4 willow warblers.

migrants galore !!

i turned on the computer to see if their had been any more reports of the wryneck and dotterel at newbiggin found by those dedicated birders last night then i realised there were migrants all over the county so i went up to blyth cemetery hoping to bump into a crowd of birders watching a wryneck the place was empty and could not see or here any birds singing apart from a robin i then bumped into a birder from prudoe who was in the same predicament so i did not waste any more time
i dont have a pager so decided to head to a spot in cambios an old track leading to an old railway bridge with some good areas of scrub there was birds all over pied flycatcher ,garden warbler kindly picked out by a blyth valley birder ,redstart wheatear,this was just a brief stop who knows what else was here.
unfortunatly this was the only spare time i had today so the wryneck dotterel and rb flycatcher hopefully will hang around a bit longer,i doubt it very much though.

Our Tent

hopefully we can tour the country and find some top birding sites with our new tent here are some pictures from our pitch at faskally caravan and camping park.

arse over tit

my previous post seems to be upside down plus i have managed to delete my older posts i can not get the photos to appear under the text when i prepare my posts
HELP!!!

GLENGOULANDIE

take your pick luxury lodges static caravan or tent i prefer the latter

more stunning views from the area

the fast flowing burn good views of dipper around this area.

one of the trails around a fishing pond had good views of buzzard from here usualy herd before being seen

highland cattle at the deer park

our tent is on the far right

a camping break in scotland on the 10/8/08 was a welcome break from work so we decided to head for perthshire and spend a night at glengoulandie country park before heading to faskally
we arrived at glengoulandie an area surrounded by hills and a fast flowing burn ran through the site,and situated at the foot of mount schiehallion.
a walk around the deer park and surrounding footpaths is included in the pitch fee's