With a biting northwesterly tearing across the causeway I arrived on Holy Island and met up with Ollie, Neil, Dawn and Sarah for a few hours birding around the island. I was really looking forward to this trip because I’ve known Ollie since we first started NEWT as he has his own outdoor activity business…

Around the village House Sparrows were abundant, Pied Wagtails were in the churchyard, Blackbirds were grubbing around in tangled vegetation, Red Admirals added a touch of the exotic and around the edge of the harbour Bar-tailed Godwit, Dunlin, Curlew and Ringed Plover were busily feeding as the eerie moaning wails of Grey Seals carried on the stiffening breeze. Along the eastern shore Grey Herons and a Little Egret were in the rock pools, sheltered from an angry looking sea, and we headed back along the Crooked Lonnen to have lunch at the Post Office Cafe.

Our post-lunch walk along the Straight Lonnen, past hawthorns with Goldcrests in constant motion, fields with Lapwing, Curlew, Oystercatcher and Roe Deer and a dry stone wall with a pair of Stonechats brought us eventually to the exposed wind-blasted north of the island with it’s strange stunted Viper’s Bugloss and a shoreline with more Bar-tailed Godwits, Ringed Plovers and Dunlin on the beach and a couple of female Eiders and one pristine drake in the frothy foaming surf of the rising tide.