Author: martin

I’ve spent the last few days in the office but we have been out doing business-related stuff the last two evenings. On Tuesday we went up to Felton to meet up for a pint and a chat with Mark Winter of Birdwatch Northumbria. Leaving the pub we opted for the ‘scenic’ route home, as it’s a good road for Barn Owls. This almost turned to disaster as, within 5 minutes, icy roads and heavy snow made driving conditions hazardous. Sarah’s skill behind the wheel saw us safely home, although somewhat later than anticipated.

Last night we went to the very entertaining Bizfizz business showcase at Newbiggin. Living in Wansbeck we applaud the effort that Jan and Graeme put into coaching budding entrepreneurs in our small corner of Northumberland.

At 8.45 am this morning the snow arrived, so activity levels around our feeding station quickly escalated to frenzied and nearly 2kg of seed vanished in 5 hours. I spent the day training as a Health Walk Leader, although the demonstration walk was rather curtailed by the heavy snow and treacherous conditions underfoot. Weather forecast looks good for our Farnes and Holy Island cruise on Saturday so we should have an excellent end to the week, with our final visit to the seal colony for this year.

Yesterday evening I gave a talk to the Coast Wildlife Group. ‘A Summer of Pelagic Seabirding’ concentrates on two trips I organised in 2002; the NTBC field trip from Plymouth-Santander and the “Wilson’s Petrel” pelagic. This is followed by a gallery of birds and cetaceans that have been recorded on pelagic trips out of Royal Quays and Seahouses in the subsequent years. The weather during the day was awful so I decided to improve the presentation by incorporating video clips from various pelagic trips. All was going well until I transferred the PowerPoint presentation from my PC to the laptop. Then, disaster, the video clips wouldn’t play…and it took me a long time to realise that the clips weren’t embedded in PowerPoint, but that it accesses them from the hard drive when the appropriate slide is reached. Then it was an easy problem to solve. I enjoyed giving the talk and it brought a few things into real clarity; how much the digital age has impacted on wildlife recording in the last few years (dSLR, digiscoping and video recording as well as the possibilities it has opened up for presentations) and how intriguing our pelagic wildlife is, with so many questions still unanswered.

Sarah’s parents were visiting us this weekend, and on Saturday we decided to head up the coast. An excellent lunch at The Ship Inn, Low Newton-by-the-sea, was followed by a walk along the beach – which was still encrusted with frost at 2.30 in the afternoon. Harkess Rocks at Bamburgh was our next destination, with spectacular pink clouds massing above the horizon over the Farne Islands, looking like swathes of candy floss. As daylight departed we drove to Berwick to see the penultimate night of the Northumberland Lights “State of Berwick” display. Although we’d enjoyed beautiful clear weather all the way up the coast, when we reached Berwick it was shrouded in freezing fog. Everything (including ourselves once we’d been out of the car for a few minutes) was frozen. It was a surreal winter wonderland, but bitterly, bitterly cold.

Yesterday, I took the in-laws to the Harthope Valley, to do a walk that I’m writing for the Northumberland National Park 2009 Visitor Guide. The ground was frozen solid and, as we made our way around the route, Pheasants, Red Grouse, Goldcrests, Buzzards, Mistle Thrushes. Long-tailed Tits and Green Woodpeckers were all busy either feeding, or looking for food, or squawking in alarm as we passed through their icy domain. Having walked up an appetite it was time to head home and enjoy Sunday lunch before filling our bird feeders (currently a daily event…).

The surface of Catcleugh Reservoir reflected the beauty of the surrounding hills and the serenity of the Whooper Swans, as the hills themselves reflected the eerie calls of these winter visitors from the north. The air was icy but absolutely still; a sublime start to a day in the Cheviot valleys. Buzzards perched on fence posts or beat their wings furiously trying to find those elusive thermals, Kestrels hovered above the heather, Green Woodpeckers yaffled indignantly as we passed through their plantation, Great-spotted Woodpeckers jumped from branch to branch before scaling the heights of the tree trunks, Goldcrests and Coal Tits flitted restlessly among the bare branches, Red Grouse engaged in vigorous pursuit from one side of the valley to the other, Dipper and Grey Wagtail raced along the streams and a Brown Hare sat, unmoved by our presence, in a field that was also hosting a Grey Heron. The pink, orange, yellow, red and grey of the sunset framed the sudden appearance of Jupiter and Venus and dark descended. End of November? Limited daylight? It has a magic all of its own.

After a couple of days confined to the office, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to go for a walk in the woods as daylight faded to black. The Goldcrest invasion shows no sign of abating, with birds in nearly every tree and shrub that I passed. A real bonus was 5 Waxwings, flying in to roost on the old pit heap. If you haven’t caught up with any of these stunning birds yet then keep looking; there’s been a substantial influx in the last month. Wandering through the wood I found myself face-to-face with a Roe Deer, which looked curiously at me for a few seconds before bounding off through the trees. Bank Voles were scrabbling around in the fallen leaves at my feet and, right on cue, a Tawny Owl started it’s quavering song. Other owls responded from the trees around me and a Red Squirrel on it’s way to bed clucked angrily as it passed through the branches above my head. Canada Geese and Mallards were calling in flight as they passed over the wood and I was startled as a Woodcock burst from the ground just a few feet in front of me. Heading back along the footpath, my dark-adjusted eyes were just about enough to keep me out of the deep puddles…

I’ve been confined to the office for the last couple of days; my car is off the road for repairs, and I’ve got a lot of admin stuff to catch up on. My office window still allows me to see the comings and goings of our local birds though; thrushes come out of the wood every morning and fly east over the house, then back again every evening. Cormorants are now seen every day, although I’m still not sure where they’re going because the direction they fly seems random. Our feeding station is depleting at a rate of about 0.5kg per day (as much as 1.5kg in less than 8 hours when it snows or there’s a heavy frost) and both Coal Tit and Blue Tit numbers have increased to the point where there can be 10+ of each at the feeders at any time. Bullfinch numbers have increased as well, since the first pair returned to our garden at the end of October. Now there are 5 or 6 of these stunning birds around the feeders for most of the day. It’s a species that occupies a special place in my heart because I can still recall my first one from nearly 40 years ago; a haughty male with his brilliant red body, sitting quietly in the tangled bramble bush in our garden. He made an impression that has lasted through several decades of my life and will surely never leave.

I spent a few very enjoyable hours yesterday morning at the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust visitor centre at Washington (Tyne and Wear, not D.C.!). While I was still teaching I led a few school outings to the centre, and I was impressed by how it has changed in the last few years. Although a major part of what the centre is about is the captive wildfowl collection, that isn’t all there is to it. The habitat management makes the area excellent for wild birds and the feeding station had an impressive number of birds visiting it. There were so many Bullfinches, Nuthatches, tits and finches that it was almost impossible to decide which feeder to watch. I was very interested to hear about the captive breeding programmes the centre is undertaking as well. And the upshot of my visit? Northern Experience will be offering some exciting new birdwatching activities in 2009, and WWT Washington will be a part of that.

We were in Wooler last night, quite close to one of our favourite areas of Northumberland – the Harthope Valley. The road into the valley was closed for a time after the devastating floods of early September, but is thankfully re-opened now. Looking into the darkness of the hills around us my mind was transported to the ford at Coldgate Mill and the clear, cascading water, with its Dippers, Goosanders, Common Sandpipers and Grey Wagtails. Driving back down the A697, the lack of light pollution meant that the sky was jet black and sprinkled with the tiny pin-points of a myriad of stars. Even when we reached the hazy orange glow of Morpeth, we were still carrying some of the unspoilt countryside in our hearts and minds. That’s the spell that Northumberland casts.

No, I’m not going all Shakespearean. Just wondering how I would describe Newbiggin to somebody who has never been there. That particular train of thought arose yesterday morning while I was engaged in an ultimately fruitless search for the Desert Wheatear that had been on the golf course for the last few days. I followed my usual route from Church Point north along the clifftop towards the power station, stopping to check the flocks of wagtails and pipits that were grubbing about on the beach. The waves crashing into the rocks, sending fountains of spray high into the air were equally captivating. Heading back south, below the ash lagoon banks, the bushes were alive with robins, greenfinches and blackbirds. Two crossbills flew in-off the sea and disappeared into the remarkable jungle that is ‘The Mound’, curlew and redshank called harshly as they were flushed from their roosts by the golfers who were braving the weather. Yes, I forgot to mention, all of this took place in icy-cold driving rain but that didn’t matter; Newbiggin is such an extraordinary mix of old and new, industrial and rural, that it’s the place I go when I need a break from everyday life. Fresh air, exercise, always plenty of birds, curious golfers, a skyline dominated by a power station, huge horses tethered by the edge of the golf course…and people collecting coal from the beach. There really isn’t anywhere like it.