Black-necked Grebe

There was a birder in the hide when I got there, unusual. He hadn't seen anything, not unusual. A glance out of the hide put me on to a juvenile Coot, strange, they haven't bred to my knowledge. Closer look, ah, not a juvenile Coot, small grebe, unusual. Closer scrutiny showed it to be a Black-necked Grebe, and a juvenile by the slightly yellowy, gold tint to the ear coverts. Nice one.

Windy, dreary

Nasty, blustery westerly with a smidgeon of north in it meant I sought shelter higher up the Kettle. A Sooty went distantly by and 2 Arctic Skuas were making a nuisance of themselves amongst the distant (and unidentifiable) terns. A Manx, 2 close Arctic Skuas heading east and that was that. So I went to Scaling Dam.

Now that's what I call seawatching

Common Scoter trying to get by me ....

That was gooooooood. Three hours on the Kettle from 16:25 - couldn't go this morning, had to go to work and then paint the bathroom. But the best comes to he who waits.

A superb, sparkling, wonderful (reasonably close) adult Roseate Tern went west at 18:20. I went on to high power to check out a distant Manx and the Rosy just flew into the view, full tail streamers the business. They always amaze, how does it fly? And just why? There was a juvvy Black Tern also along with 247 Arctic and Common Terns - the split was about 50:50, they were further out on the whole this evening but of close birds nearly all were Arctic - especially the ones going east - most went west into the presumed roost somewhere in the bay. Distant birds in gangs are always challenging and in the sometimes poor light, or when I got to looking too far west they become impossible. Sadly there do seem to be relatively few juvs. 104 Sarnies also went west towards the roost (there were only 31 yesterday).

The species mix this evening was just excellent - 13 Arctic Skuas, 3 Bonxies and a Pom (no skuas yesterday). 6 Soots, 15 Manx, 3 Red-throated Divers, 1 Teal, 1 Pintail, 17 Wigeon, 1 Eider, 7 Common Scoter (including the one above swimming west). 1 Redshank called early on (not frequent here) but a flock of 26 west was exceptional, also, 10 Golden Plover and 1 Whimbrel west, about 600 Gannets (from sample counts and equal each way), about 450 Kitts mostly west. So a good do.

Oh, and there was a Marsh Tit in the garden this morning, that's the first for more than a year I think.

What a tern up

In a couple of hours this evening 648 Common Terns went west, 14 went east. There were 36 Arctic Terns west (I might have missed some as distance, light and numbers were a problem). 23 terns were either Common or Arctic. 28 Sandwich Terns went west and 3 east. Star bird was a single Black Tern west, there was probably another one but I failed to clinch the id and it seemed to vaporise when I tried to refind it. Also on offer were 4 Soots - 2 distant and 2 that together came into the bay late on. Only 2 Manx and they went east. 2 Whimbrel, 3 small wadery jobs that I reckoned might have been RPs. 300 auks on the sea that were 10:1 Guillemots : Razors I thought. There were but 20 or so Kitts and 30 Gannets but Fulmars were at about 40.

A distant whale went west, didn't show the jizz of a Minke - could have been one though - however, best left as a sp - came up three times. At least 3 Harbour Porpoise were on show.

On land there was little to report.

The Vice County 62 thing

I've recently taken on the job of bird recorder for the Yorkshire Naturalists Union (YNU) for Vice County 62. The ornithological section of the YNU is the organisation which produces the Yorkshire Bird Report and the Rare and Scarce Species Bird Reports for the county of Yorkshire. For consistency the YNU uses the Watsonian vice county system so that the recording area does not change when political county boundaries are changed.

There seem to be two main jobs: 1. Making contact with birders in VC 62 and convincing them to submit their data and 2. Organising that data and getting it into a useful form for the writers of the YNU report(s).

So if you go birding or are a patch watcher in VC 62 (from just north of Filey - near Cayton Bay - to the south bank of the Tees and inland to roughly the A1 and down to York) I'm interested in your bird records (if you are not sure which vice county you are in give me the map reference and I can sort it out). This includes the south of Teesmouth Bird Club area (County of Cleveland), Scarborough Birders area, Ryedale Natural History Society area - if you usually submit records to these organisations please continue to do so as their that data will come to the YNU via their recorders. I'm not covering any of the area that falls within the York Ornithological Society realm (which straddles three vice counties) someone else is doing that. Please submit your data through the YOS.

I'm very interested in data collected from any site over a number of years and especially where bird populations have changed. So if you have that kind of information and are prepared to share or discuss it I would be very interested to talk to you (exchange email etc).

You may submit rare bird records to me and I will pass these on to the group which is assessing these records. I am not part of the record assessment process (because I don't have that expertise and I don't want to do that job anyway). All information submitted to me is considered to be confidential and will not be passed on other than via YNU systems.

You may submit rare and scarce breeding bird records to me - these will be treated in a highly confidential manner and passed on only via the YNU systems. I do now have the contacts to respond where rare breeding birds are threatened with disturbance so if you think the farmer is going to cut your Corncrake's field I may be able to summon some assistance.

I've also taken on writing the skuas, gulls and terns sections for the YNU 2006 bird report. There is still time to submit data for this. I'd be very interested in any observations of numbers of these species that were recorded in Yorkshire in 2006, especially unusual or large numbers, counts of juveniles and adults (especially of terns), first and last dates for winter or summer visitors and first fledging dates (Yorkshire breeding species) and first observations of juveniles (migrants).

If you want more information please feel free to contact me on birdsvc62@gmail.com

Result - the Oik Factor

240 Oiks

Strangely enough I hadn't estimated this lot myself - having just checked Birdtrack and my notebook. Two sparkling entrants - but fellas you won't be doing roost counts for me cos you're a way off.

The prize - and what a prize we have for you - five visits to ....... Green Withens. I felt that everybody should have a chance to experience the most birdless birding experience in Britain. And escorted visits too - yes you will be able to experience first hand the man who can swear more creatively than any other birder in the country.

And the winner is - Darrell with an estimate of 150 - (only 90 out). So Darrell you'll have to get yourself out of the pub and get yourself down to your patch on five special winning occasions.

Scaling Dam and YNU

Scaling Dam this a.m. produced a Marsh Harrier, seen only briefly at the Cleveland end. There appeared to be a bit of Mepit movement west with one small flock going and Mepits in evidence around the reservoir and around the Marsh Harrier. As I drove over the moor later another couple of small flocks were seen, so autumn has really begun.

The YNU meeting clarified what I need to do for this VC62 business, so that was handy. I'll write up the info and stick it on the blog in a day or so.

Garden birds today

2 Common Buzzard over the garden looked like juvs, they hung around and then drifted west. A Tree Sparrow went west.

I do like a good Tansy

Tansy

It's no bovver with a hovver

Comma's comma

Record shot, Spot Fly

The Tansy in the front garden is doing rather well and attracts many a hover.

It was a good garden day yesterday with Comma, Wall, Peacock, Red Admiral, Small Tortoiseshell, Large White and Green-veined White all in evidence. Lots of hovers on the Tansy and the Buddlia.

A new bird for the garden - Spotted Flycatcher - 3 paused briefly to feed from the Sycamores before heading off east.

Competition time

How many Oiks? Take a quick look and estimate.

Juvvy Geeb.

The mystery gull from the other day was of course a juvenile Herring Gull. It's interesting how similar juveniles of Herring Gull and Greater Black-backed can look and the variation in apparent bill size in Herring Gull is often confusing.

Here's a juvenile Geeb for your delectation.

Now, how good are you at estimating numbers? Take a quick look at the pic of the Oystercatcher roost and estimate how many there are - answer in a day or so.

Seawatching yesterday

View from the Kettle

Teal go by

That was a bit more like it. The first hour from 06:30 was pretty good and then things slowed right down until the end but it was a much more entertaining experience.

The first few minutes produced a distant posse of 5 skuas going down (east). I decided to ascribe these to the sp designation in the vague hope they might have been Long-tails. In reality I saw them pretty poorly and they were distant. Then a few large flocks of Common Terns went down too. Next up were some distant but definite Arctic Skuas. Then a Soot and then another one. In the meantime there were Teal and Common Scoter and stacks of Common Terns and a pile of Gannets feeding just offshore. A trickle of Manxies went by.

Things improved again when 6 Scoter went past the front two being neat, drake Velv's. Wigeon, Red-th Diver and Bonxie put in cameo appearances. A Shelduck went by. 2 Ringed Plover tried to sneak past under the cliff but I was far too sharp for them.

And then it all, slooowwwed down.

The feeding Common Terns that were offshore (a long, long way offshore - x45 and eyes on stalks) in gangs slowly moving west were gradually replaced by Kitts. These feeding flocks did repay closer observation and I managed to find 3 Little Gulls and an Arctic Tern. I strongly suspected Roseatte Tern but just couldn't nail it. (Elsewhere up the coast these flocks produced Sabine's Gulls but not for me today.) All stayed quiet until about 10:15 when another Soot and 2 Bonxies appeared and 2 juvenile Arctic Skuas (my first confirmed juvs of the year) rattled past close inshore.

Walking back up the cliff 4 Wheatear hinted at some passerine business going on ..... and shiver me timbers what's this at the top of the cliff; a birder (seawatching from the car parking area) - pleasantries were exchanged but I was in shock truth to tell.

Common Terns had totalled 211 and with but one Arctic confirmed that was a significant change. There were but 14 Sandwich Terns so they've all popped off somewhere, it will be interesting to see if they return. Gannet were reckoned at more than 800 and the usual couple of hundred auks were offshore, the majority being Guillemots from what I could discern.

No proper birding

Clemmys et (far) and Clemmys mollis-toy (near) preparing to feed, Yorkshire, August 2007.

Did make one really interesting observation today. I rarely see turtles but theses two were feeding together, or at least they seemed to be waiting to feed, I did not actually observe the food items. The species involved appear to be Clemmys et and Clemmys mollis-toy, but I'm no expert. However, a recording made at the time and translated on the internet seemed to indicate food preferences.
C. mollis-toy - "I'll have scrambled eggs and a fish fritter."
C. et - "Make that two but steady with the HP."

I had a quick look at TWP this evening and that does seem to confirm my identifications in that: "Adults of this species (C. et) have been recorded consuming HP Brown Sauce with fish fritter on some 23 occasions, however, in 21 of those observations brown sauce was recorded as left on the plate after the turtles had departed. Raphael notes (Rapheal and Yoshi 1987) that C. mollis-toy was observed on several occasions to remove the lid from bottles that looked in shape and colour superficially like those of HP Brown Sauce bottles.".

Rather too knackered to go birding to tell the truth, however, this evening I heard a Hoopoe, the song strangely enough. Bit off my beaten track in Ambridge, it only called once, and was rather distant, but it's so distinctive, lots of House Martins about as well.

Blowin'

The north wind doth blow, but it didn't bring me many birds. Best bird in 2.5 hours this evening was a Little Gull. Initially there were terns and Kittiwakes feeding off the point and the Little Gull was with them. There was very little movement with only 6 Manx west and no Arctic Skuas. Bonxies were loafing about though and at least 5 were offshore.

A Bonxie had killed or found dead an auk and was eating it. Several Gannets appeared to take exception to this and were harassing the Bonx. The Gannets repeatedly flew around and dropped on to the Bonx. Perhaps this was revenge for fish lost in the past, or just because it was an opportunity to give the Bonx some grief. It clearly was not accidental as one Gannet repeated the behaviour 4 times.

There was a bit of quacker movement with Teal and Common Scoter heading mostly west and 6 Wigeon lurked around the point until also eventually going off into the bay. 11 Knot, including a nice red one also fed around the point until the tide forced them off. Whimbrel was again present.

05:50 no wind

Not so good, no wind poor vis. But An Arctic Skua went east and a Manx went west close by almost immediately. Then after a bit the terns started flying northeast out of Runswick Bay - this made them very difficult to id. For some reason the Sandwich (easy to id) float past close in whilst the Commons and Arctics (hard to separate) are further out, going like the clappers and at that awkward north-easterly angle. In the end I reckoned that about 75% were Arctic but I'd prefer the id to be more certain. Of the few close birds that were easier to id the split was 50:50 There are more juvs present now which is encouraging. There were about 120 Commics altogether and probably at least that many Sarnies. Gannets were going at about 140 an hour and there were but 100 Kitts in total.

After an hour or so the wind picked up a bit and the sea fret came in and the ducks started moving. 72 Common Scoter, 110 Teal, 8 Eider all went west. There was a Knot with one flock of Teal, a flock of Whimbrel went over but I couldn't see them (how often do they do that?) and as I left a Greenshank called and flew over my head.

Star bird was a very close Sooty that came out of the sea fret and close to the cliff before disappearing west.

Later on we went south the Bempton and South Landing. Whimbrel and sea fret at Bempton, plus the wonderful aroma of Gannet, of course. South Landing produced more Whimbrel (3 and a 1, seen this time), a Knot, Dunlin, Ringed Plovers and the usual South Landing things. It is an interesting beach, huge variety of washed up seaweed, interesting tide lines and interesting plant colonisation.

Kettleness then Scaling

Kettleness yesterday evening was rather dull. On reflection I should have spent the time taking pix as the light was nice initially and many things came close to the end, like Oytercatchers, Curlew, Sandwich Terns and the very lovely gull assortment. And that was about the whole seawatch - an adult Arctic Skua did chase the Sandwich Terns for a bit and a few Arctic and Common Terns came into Runswick Bay (with a reasonable proportion of juvs, so that's a bit more encouraging).

Scaling Dam this morning produced another juvvy Marsh Harrier which flew around a bit and then perched in a bush. There was a Green Sand as well. Spent most of the hour chatting to birders from Cleveland, a rare opportunity at Scaling where I hardly ever meet other birders. Quite unlike Kettleness where there are never other birders - unless I force them into my car and drive them there and then make them go birding with the business end of a tripod.

Other flying stuff - dangerous methinks

New - Movie (main feature)

Not only is it the birds which fly. (Some of this looks decidedly dangerous to my eye.) But I do enjoy watching a thing done well - good tune too Fatboy.

Well that was exciting .... not

Atmosphere shot - fishing
Click on any pic and it'll go big

What a neat juvvy HG

Oooohhh, just look at the moult on that!

What's this then (answers on the back of an envelope please)?

"Call me a Leeb and I'll peck your heart out and eat it minced with squirrel"

Down to the sea at 6:40 The wind was blowing (WNW and west a bit more), there was cloud (but rather a lot of sun too) and the birds .... what birds. Ok so there were a few more Fulmars moving than there have been but the Kitts have given up compared to last week; ok so there was a pile of Sandwich Terns but rather a lot fewer Arctic and Commons. Quackers? 1 Common Scoter and 7 Teal. However, a rather nice juvvy Little Gull fed into the wind and two hours later another one did the same thing. Now, in 11 years of watching Withens Clough I never saw a Little Gull and one Little Gull there, let alone 2 in 2.5 hours would have been a triumph but somehow that isn't the point. After two hours I thought, "This might be a seawatch without a Manx." And then a Manx, one, a single one went by. So I thought, "This might be a seawatch without a Wandering Albatross." And Triton said, "Give it a rest mate." So I packed up and climbed back up the cliff lest I test his patience and engage his wrath.

Anyway, above are some very nice gulls, I always see a pile of them and I've changed the Movie (short) to give you a taste of the sea - I don't mean that literally unless you have a large bucket on the 3rd USB port.

VC 62

What's all this then? You may well ask. I'm sure I'll be asking myself when I'm knee deep in finch records. 385 feeding stations in the vice county all send me their daily counts of Greenfinch and Chaffinch - I will cherish them, I will, I promise.

No seawatch Scaling dam (and work) instead

It was throwing it down at 5 this morning. No way am I sitting on the Kettle in this. So I went to Scaling Dam instead (nice dry(ish) hide). And it was quite good. A long distance Aythya quacker didn't quite give itself up in the very poor visibility but it was most likely a Scaup. There were 4 Gadwall (don't think I've seen them at Scaling before) and 1 drake Wigeon. There was a Dunlin. And then a stack of big gulls appeared, so they needed a sift through, a-ha, a LB-bGull showing the characters of intermedius (small and much darker on the wings, back and mantle than graellsi). So quite good really. Then I had to go to work, yes, I know I'm on holiday, so it goes .....

So I went back to Scaling this evening and there was a Dunlin and 2 Green Sands at the Yorkshire end and at the Cleveland end there was one more of each of these. There was a pair of Wigeon, a Curlew and ..... that was about it so I came home again.

If it isn't raining and if I wake up I'll go seawatching tomorrow.

Yuk

Think I'll paint the bathroom instead. But look at the weather map - see link to Bracknell, it's looking good for Thursday, Friday and Saturday. With luck the calm weather will mean any skuas will come back on Saturday ... I'm on holiday so maybe I'll be giving it a go tomorrow anyway (if it rains I'll paint more). Whatdya mean "soft" you try sitting on Kettleness in the rain and a northerly (the Kettle points north, it aint no fun) - this isn't Filey or Scarborough or Hartlepool yknow, this is real elemental seawatching .... there goes the brollyeeeeeeeeeeee .... inland at 35 knots.