Friday, October 31, 2008

Close but no .... BananaBill


So the White-billed Diver flew at 14 mph between Whitburn and Hauxley (if it was the same bird). My possible, but too far out for me to id, would have been flying at about 13.7 mph if this was the same bird that went past Whitburn - reckon I was robbed. The Bamburgh bird would have had to fly at 36 mph to get between Bamburgh and Hauxley in the time given, that had to be a different bird then.

It was a good seawatch, not as good as those further north of me had but entertaining all the same. The Gannets were doing the opposite of the other day, juveniles were generally going south whilst adults and 2nd years and older were generally going north. Gannets north in three hours 141 and south 34. There were almost no Kittiwakes until about 10:00 then I noticed distant birds going south, I started counting at 10:00 and between then and 10:35, 668 went south, they then stopped almost as abruptly as they had started although 100+ were feeding distantly offshore. A single 1stW Little Gull was picked out amongst the Kitts. Almost all the Kittiwakes going south were adults, the few I had had earlier going north inshore were mostly juveniles.

Apart from the suspect White-billed Diver, which should be attributed to diver sp I saw 3 Great Northern Divers, 3 Red-throated Diver and another diver sp, 22 Pale-bellied Brent Geese and 6 Dark-bellied Brent Geese (two went south); 65 Common Scoter; 3 Velvet Scoter, 2 Long-tailed Duck, 1 Scaup, 19 Eider; 1 Red-breasted Merganser; 1 Goldeneye, 58 Wigeon; and 23 duck sp (various annoyingly distant, fast flying and southward flying quacker individuals and small flocks that disappeared all too rapidly); also on offer 1 Manx Shearwater; 1 Fulmar; 1 Great Skua; 1 Shag and 59 auk sp some of which were Guillemots and 3 of which were likely Razorbills but nearly all the auks were distant.

Waxwing

I emerged from the seawatch at 10:45 and began a thorough search of Rain Dale and then the railway track. My reward was a Waxwing that dropped in just as one of the squalls past Rain Dale. Unfortunately it rapidly moved off when the farmer drove his cows past it. (No Radde's Warbler then.)
Rain Dale bushes

3 comments:

Warren Baker said...

An interesting blog, some great birds up there! I'lldrop in more often, and I'll put a link from my site.

Alastair said...

Thanks Warren

Warren Baker said...

Alistair,
What a coincedence - you once living in hadlow! The net does shrink the world !!