PREDATOR

Watching the skies but he left empty handed

Scanning the bird table looking for a target

While washing the dishes yesderday a sparrowhawk swooped into the garden hoping to grab something on the way it then landed on my fence so i made a quick dash for my scope, tripod and camera and managed to get these shots through the kitchen window, who said? housework is boring.

IN THE GARDEN

Red Admiral

Peacock
These snaps were taken in the back garden I was preparing the vege patches for the autumn and could not resist taking these shots,I do not normally take much notice of insects in the garden but seeing these seems to have sparked an interest apparantly these belong to a group of butterflies called aristocrats as far as i know.

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.