Spot fly & Turtle dove

Had 3 pairs of Spotted Flycatchers today which were new for the year, also in the area was a purring Turtle Dove which was showing very well, shame the light was rubbish. A few birds turned up at the coast today, Spoonbill/Great white egret/Temminck's stint which iv'e already got but a fly over Black Kite would of being nice :0 looks good again tomorrow, so a trip to the coast might be on the cards for my daily tick ;)

New year tick

Added Little gull to my year list today, 4 birds were at Cresswell pond this morning. Went to Muggleswick for spotted flycatcher, but no birds in yet? :( had 3 pied flycatchers though and got some shots of red squirrels at pow hill cp, not much else about today so decided to do a spot of gardening :( when its quiet. Lets see what tomorrow brings, southerly winds forcast :0 could be good up the coast. Decided to do some birding abroad next year :0 looking to get to Nepal for 11 days in feb 2014 :0 840+ species of bird on offer in Nepal (300 species on my tour) with tigers, jaguars, rhino and other cracking wildlife about :) you go threw the forests and mountains in jeeps, birding on the river by boat and into the jungle on elephant back, a different way to go birding i suppose :) lol, also a flyover Mount Everest. If anyone fancys a look at the Nepal holiday i'm going on, go to naturetrek.co.uk and click onto destinations-asia-Nepal - a birdwatching tour for the tour details, should be a good trip to kick start my world list off :0 lol.

Little gulls x 4 @ cresswell pond

my first male Pied flycatcher this year

Red squirrels at pow hill cp

All 4 skua's in a session

Went to Bowness-on-solway this morning hoping to bag a long-tailed skua and a Pomarine skua :0 the wind direction looked good in the morning on a incoming tide, but it was feezing cold so decided not to seawatch from the viaduct and just to stay in the warmth of my landrover, got there for 6am and left at 12pm and was unlucky only had 6 skua's all morning :( what a long morning, i even fell asleep at 7:30am for 1 hour that's how slow it was :) lol. My luck was in though as the 6 skua's i did have consisted of all 4 species :0 first a Pomarine skua come into the bay at 8:45am and went straight back out, next 2 Bonxies past and flew east over land at 9am and 9:05am, next came the star bird :0 Long-tailed skua which also flew east and over land at 9:32am and a second Pomarine skua also flew east over land at 9:55am, only leaving Arctic skua which finally arrived at 10:35am. I managed to get a few shots of the Bonxie and pom but the other 2 got away before i could get the camera out of the back of the landrover :( next stop was home for a couple of hours sleep, thats why im posting now. Good day at the office taking my year list to 228.

couple of shots of one of the Pom skuas

Bonxie

What a day!!!

Set off for holy island this morning where a rustic bunting and red backed shrike had been seen, i just got to the west chev turn off on the A1 when my pager started beeping :0 GREAT REED WARBLER (British lifer) at east chev! i took the turn off straight away and made my way to the site, managed to get the bird after a 40min wait singing and showing well threw a scope. Next i went to low newton for a red backed shrike which i just got a brief view off :( but managed to get a nice male at holy island where my next stop was, the main target bird LESSER GREY SHRIKE which came on the pager when i was at low newton, it showed ok in the fog near the main car park. Didn't no which way to turn as birds were turning up everywhere :0 but couldn't resist the 87 miles to hartlepool where a cracking THRUSH NIGHTINGALE (British lifer)  was on show, and good at that :) great day's birding, sure to be some more bird found tomorrow as the weather looks the same again? lets just hope they are all in the same place!!! only shots i got today were off the Thrush Nightingale as the rest were in poor conditions :( shame.

Thrush Nightingale @ Hartlepool, the croft area

Home sweet home

Back home now and straight into the action :) went to hartlepool for the reported Blyth's reed warbler which turned out to be a Reed warbler :( never mind though, i thought it was a good chance to catch up with the Lesser Scaup which was on the allotment pool this evening. I also had 2 yellow wags and a couple of wheatears on seaton common, also got the wood sandpiper at lamesley water meadows back on home turf :) just got to wait for a fine weekend now for a trip to speyside where 9 year ticks await me :0

Wood sandpiper @ lamesley water meadows in the rain

Yellow wagtail @ seaton common

Tree sparrow @ kibblesworth

Common sandpiper @ shibdon pond on the only patch to feed on due to the high water levels :( shame the migrating waders can't stop off to feed :( one good thing about the high water levels is the frankenstien duck population's nest's will be flooded out :) shame other breeding birds nest's will be flooded though :(

day 7

Had a quick look around salthouse heath-cley marshes, then decided to call it a day and pack the caravan and head home :( the weather was getting me down and no rare birds turning up :( only birds to report today were:
Nightingale
Little tern

Day 6

A dodge around the north coast today, started at warnham greens-morston quay-blakeney harbour-cley and salthouse, highlights were:
Whinchat x 1 new for year
Mandarin x 1 new for year
Montague's harrier x 2 ringtail at ''the usual place'' and a 1s male flew west over morston quay
Marsh harrier x 5 male flew over caravan early morning
Spoonbill x 2
Blue headed wagtail x 3
Little egret x 11
500+ brent geese
Greenland wheatears x 5
Avocet x 30+
Little tern x 3

1s male Monty's

Whinchat

Home for the week :)