Northumberland Part 2

Day 4
Today after an amazing day yesterday, we decided to go to Holy Island or its also called Lindisfarne, we arrived and in the car park got Linnet and House Sparrow with c200 Golden Plover fly over, looking around the village of Holy Island Collared Dove, Woodpigeon and Chaffinch were everywhere, after looking around the old Priory, we went up to a watch tower where in the bay we could see loads of Grey Seals, after watching the seals, my Dad and I went along the North coastline to do some more sea-watching, we found 10 Sandleing, Gannets everywhere, Seals everywhere and Eider almost everywhere.

Day 5
This was the event that I was most looking forward to going to the Farnes, so we arrived at Seahouses and booked our places with Billy Shiels and had a 1 Hour boat trip, which I saw my first ever Shag, also saw thousands of, Puffins and Kittiwakes, most of the Guillemots and Razorbills had already left but  a few were dotted around, also on the one of Outer Farnes about 20 Grey Seals were posing for the camera. We landed on Inner Farne with thousands of Terns along the jetty, including Sandwich, Common and Arctic, also 3 Ringed Plover Chicks along the beach, and thier were loads of Arctic Terns chicks amongst the vegetation and the boardwalks were covered with adults with Sand Eels in thier mouths, I went into the visitor centre and met David Steel, he is the Head Warden of the Farnes, he showed me around Inner Farne and then let me watch him ring a Puffin!!! After that we had to catch the boat back to Seahouses, what an experience.

Shag

Grey seal

Grey Seals 

Hello There

Incoming!!!

Shag

Puffin

Shag and audience 

What's wrong I'm posing for the camera?

Arctic Tern

Caption thier

After an amazing day yesterday, in the morning we went to Long Nanny again to see more Little Terns sadly we didn't see another one but saw 10 Roseate Terns!!!! Also a flock of 140+ Curlew, did check for Whimbrel but didn't have much look with that one, also saw 3 Wheatear and my first Whinchat flitting around on the floor. Also I took some pictures of some Burnet Moths could anyone help me with what type?

Arctic Tern

Arctic Tern

Burnet Species?

Blue Butterfly Species?

Day 7

This was my Final day in Northumberland before I go back home, my dad said that he had planned something for both of us, but I had no clue until we got to Seahouses at 9:30am and saw that Billy Sheils were setting off for a all day boat trip round the FARNES!!!!!!!! Sadly today was very foggy so on the boat we didn't see as much as we would of liked, but it was brilliant loads of Gannets and a very fond Lesser-black-backed Gull kept following the boat. Then a species which we had missed out on before a Fulmar flew past the boat quite close. After looking at the lovely Grey Seals again which came even closer.

This is close

Hello there

Grey Seal

Grey Seal

We docked on Staple Island and were greeted with Puffins, Shags, Guillemots and Kittiwakes, we had 2 hours to look around this lovely Island and we came close to more Shags, Puffins feeding young. Also I spotted a Purple Sandpiper which had been flushed by another boat.

Purple Sandpiper

Kittiwake

Its Puffin Time

Puffin

Further round the Island, Fulmars were on chicks with 1 nest quite close by, at one time thier was three Puffins that came really close and I laid down and waited to see if they came any closer and look at the results.

You can just see the head of the chick

Puffin

Puffin

Puffin

Puffin

After having a wonderful time on Staple Island, we headed out to Inner Farne, were we caught up with the Ringed Plover chicks and what seemed like more Terns on the Jetty, one thing that I set out for whilst I was on the Farnes was to get a Arctic Tern the land on my head, and it happened, also I found 2 Swallows flitting around, also the Shag chicks had grown so much over the last two days and the adults became even tamer. I met up with David Steel again and found a Roseate Tern flying over, later at the gift shop a woman called Anne Wilson who is the Farne isles historian listening about the history of the Farnes and how St Cuthbert died on Inner Farne. After an amazing day on the Farnes sadly we had to leave the island, memories thier will never be forgotten.

Arctic Selfie!!!

Shag pic with phone!

Northumberland Part 1

Northumberland Trip 

Day 1

Set off at 9:15 am to head to Beadnell in Northumberland, our holiday cottage was only 55 yards from the beach.

It was a 5 1/2 hour drive up to Northumberland and we arrived there but the cottage was not open for another hour so we headed 7 miles inland to a historic town called Alnwick,we wanted to go their because of the castle, it was used in the 1st Harry Potter movie for some of the scenes.It started to RAIN!!  We got home, unpacked and I couldn't wait to do what was to be the first of many sea-watches.

Beadnell Bay

Day 2 

After a uncomfortable sleep (just like lying on springs with no sheets!!!)

I woke up extra early to go and do some seawatching and to go onto Beadnell Bay and see the Arctic Tern Colony, which is called Long Nanny, it is also the biggest Mainland colony of Arctic Terns also with 60 pairs of Little Terns. We got loads of Gulls , with c200 Arctic Terns, one Little Tern, 3 Roseate Terns and 12 Sandwich Terns. Later on after we had left we decided to head to National Trust's Cragside, which is a lovely Country House in the pine woods, this is the first house to have electricity by hydropower, as well as the lovely scenery, there was a Hide which sometimes attracts Red Squirrel, but sadly we did not see any, but we saw Nuthatch, Bullfinch, Jackdaw, Wren and Greenfinch. Then in the evening we got our bucket and net and went rock pooling to find thousands of Hermit Crabs, some Shore Crabs and the odd Dabb.

Roseate Terns with Arctic Terns Digiscoped

Little Tern and possibly a juvie as well not too sure though

Nuthatch

Bullfinch

Day 3

This day was amazing as we got to go to Coquet Island, the best place and the only place that these lovely Terns breed in the U.K So we set off for Amble to catch a boat trip out to Coquet and have a cruise around the island, we arrived at Amble and in the harbour Eider were everywhere, they were like the Mallards of the Harbour. They became very tame, when we got on the boat passing Gannets and Puffins flew past, and at first we had no luck until on box 76 (I think) thier was a Roseate Tern sat upon the box. A bit distant until one flew right in front of us, the skipper of the boat said that Sand Eels around the waters of Coquet have had a bumper year and because of this, its been the best year since the 80's for breeding Roseates, we got altogether around 8 Roseate Terns plus a summer plumage Turnstone. On the trip back rafts of Puffins were either side of the boat. So ended up with an amazing day.

Eider Chick in the Harbour

Eider in the Harbour

Coquet Island

Grey Seals

Roseate Tern

Best Roseate Tern pics

Best Roseate Tern pics

I will do another blog on the second part of my holiday including Farnes, and Holy Island!!!

The Green King of the Willows

On Sunday morning I woke up at 2:45am to go ringing,whenever I wake up for ringing I'm tired but to add to that, I had just come off my holiday the day before, I'd been in Northumberland for a week (Blog to come soon on that!!) .

We arrived with a slight breeze, not the best of news for ringers as the wind will blow the net making it easier for the birds to see. After setting up all the nets, we had around 15 Lapwings fly over and land in one of the neighbouring fields.

The first round produced a surprising amount of passerines including Goldfinch, 3 Bullfinch and a number of Willow Warbler, as soon as we had extracted all the birds a Green Woodpecker started yaffling away at us, and in the next session we caught an adult Female Green Woodpecker, the second for this site, also we caught a pair of Willow Tits with one of them being a re-trap which is interesting as there isn't many in Leicestershire. Then we heard another Green Woodpecker and soon enough we caught a Juvenile Green Woodpecker. As that round had been quiet, we had some time to talk about what would be our next new species on the site, some of the suggestions we came up with were ; Grasshopper Warbler, Kingfisher, Waxwing and Woodpigeon.

Soon enough by the next round we knew what the new species would be.......... a KINGFISHER!!! This was a juvenile, and the strange thing was that we were about 250 meters from the river . Also in that round we caught a Linnet and another Willow Tit, this one being a re-trap.

Kingfisher

Juv Green Woodpecker

New Bird Total = 93
Retrap Total = 14
Complete Total = 107