Last Day For A Week

I made the most of my free time between work shifts today. Last opportunity to get out for a week with my impending foreign trip looming over the weekend. A familiar call as I bundled the kids into the car at 08:30 signalled my first two Redwings of the Autumn as they flew west over the house.

As I stepped from the car at Newbiggin I could hear the 'kik' of a Great Spotted Woodpecker in The Mound nearby, I never found it. I made do chasing a Treecreeper around for a short while. A migrant? Perhaps. My eyes have this individual a shade paler with a fairly prominent supercilium so it could in theory be a 'Northern' but whether they are ever separable in the field.... 

 

On the sheltered side of The Mound a few Red Admirals and Speckled Woods basked in the Autumn sunshine. A couple of Goldcrests  and a Chiffchaff were all I could mop up down the path.

I hit the Ash Lagoons still feeling good, a few minutes at the 'Bluetail' scrub produced the best bird of the morning with another Newbiggin Yellow-browed Warbler wing-flicking its way across the Whitebeam and Dog Rose, a nice self-found tick. (though others later suggested one has been around there for a few days).

 

Apart from a single Wheatear out on the golf course this was the last of the obvious passerine migrants of the morning. The first of three groups of Barnacle Geese flew north, 63 in total. The first group inland over the Ash Lagoons , the later groups out over the sea.

A short seawatch from Beacon Point produced little other than the aforementioned geese, 5 adult Little Gulls the pick of a quiet half hour. I headed back via the beach stopping for a while to snap some of the waders loafing on the high tide , mainly Dunlin.

I stopped off at Castle Island which as so often happens flattered to deceive, a Grey Plover, 7 Dunlins and a notable arrival of Teal were as good as it got. Sadly despite a full gull count there was nothing of note amongst them. It could all be over by the time I get back.