Blog

Yesterday was the first of our Beginners Birdwatching courses, and involved a trip across to Inner Farne. As the end of the breeding season draws near the number of birds has declined dramatically, even in the 10 days since I was last there. Even so, it’s still an experience to remember. The Arctic Terns are much less aggressive, now that their chicks are able to fly short distances themselves, the Puffins are still standing around their burrows and Kittiwakes and Shags have got large nestlings. With lower numbers of birds, it made the teaching and learning process so much easier with a lot less to take in than there would have been a month ago. The way we’ve structured the courses is as pairs of half-days, with the second trip providing opportunities for participants to practice/extend the skills and knowledge they’ve gathered on the first trip.

We’re going to run these courses every second month, so late September will be our next one; again based on the coast, but this time concentrating on waders. Beginners Birdwatching, Northumberland as a classroom…

Wednesday started with the long drive to Bellingham, to investigate new areas for our Kielder Safaris. By lunchtime I’d seen a flock of 30 Crossbills, a couple of Buzzards and a remote track, offering stunning views, was added to our route. Late August/early September will see the debut of our new Kielder Safari, so keep checking our calendar.

Then it was time to drive to Once Brewed to pre-walk one of the routes for this year’s Family Walkfest. The route follows a new boardwalk and I spent 3 hours checking all of the plants, birds and insects that can easily be spotted along the way. Most exciting was when I found a Mountain Bumblebee, but Grasshopper Warblers, Siskins, swans and geese all grabbed the attention as well. Should be an excellent walk for all the family so check the website and sign up before it’s fully booked.

Let’s start with a warning – Google Maps may provide directions for where you are going, but it doesn’t know when a road on the route is closed!

Anyhow, with a dim and distant memory of Forest Hall, from the days when I still lived in Newcastle, I collected Douglas on time. We headed west from Newcastle and out to Hexham to collect our second participant, Tim, for a day of birdwatching in southwest Northumberland and the North Pennines AONB. Visiting my favourite site for Short-eared Owl, we were struck by the strength of the wind. And it wasn’t going to ease off…

Upper Teesdale was our next port of call, and we walked from Cow Green down to Cauldron Snout. The area may not be as good for flowers as in May and June but there was still plenty to hold the interest. Several feathers, bird corpses and poo were a topic for discussion/identification and we had lunch sitting next to the roaring cataract of the waterfall. The howling gale blowing straight up the valley made for a really wild experience…and a quicker walk back to the carpark!

Black Grouse were a major target for the day, but we had to be persistent; with the lekking season over, long vegetation in most of the meadows and the high winds, it was going to be a challenge. With the benefit of lots of Black Grouse sites, I was confident that we would find one. One of the sites produced lots of Lapwings and over 100 Golden Plover, but still no grouse. A stop to check another site produced a real wildlife drama as a Stoat chased Lapwings at the edge of a pond. Last chance saloon…and before I set up the telescope my attention was drawn to a dark speck high against the blue sky overhead. It suddenly loomed larger as it plummeted towards the ground; Peregrine Falcon, the fastest bird in the world, joined briefly by another before it soared up, harassed by swallows and martins. Time to focus my attention on scanning for grouse – and there he was, a handsome Blackcock, braving the wind and shuffling through the long grass. Then panic behind us, as Lapwings Oystercatchers and Starlings all took to the air in alarm. The Peregrine had been joined by 2 Common Buzzards. A stunning end to our North Pennines day.

We should have been spending yesterday at the Osprey Watchpoint at Kielder; conservation and engaging the public (particularly with birds of prey) are very close to our hearts and have occupied a lot of our spare time for the last few years. However, the weather on Friday was a long way from promising and I was tasked with checking the conditions and forecast first thing on Saturday and contacting all of the volunteers and the volunteer co-ordinator and making a decision about the viability of having 5 volunteers sitting at Kielder in the rain.

So…we found ourselves at a loose end and decided to have a trip into Newcastle. First stop was the Thomas Bewick exhibition at the Laing Art Gallery, followed by the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition at the Hancock Museum. The incredible detail of Bewick’s art was clearly revealed with the aid of magnifying glasses and you can only wonder at the tiny scale he was working at. The photography exhibition was a bit of a mixed bag; some images that were breathtaking, but quite a few that just left me cold. Photography deserves to be treated as an art form, and art should trigger emotion; maybe positive, maybe negative. I suppose all of the images must have touched something in the judges…

Well, that’s what I believe following yesterday’s Farne Islands trip. After collecting four clients from the Queen’s Head in Berwick, the spectacular views from the A1 suggested that the Cheviots were ‘enjoying’ a bit of a downpour. By the time we’d reached Seahouses, just a few drops of rain had fallen on us. As Glad Tidings headed towards the islands the view of Holy Island away to the north became obscured as the storm moved over there and away to the south we could see another area of heavy rain. However, where we were the sun was shining; Arctic Terns were at every stage from incubating to feeding very tiny chicks all the way to young that were capable of flying. Puffins were sitting around and every so often a puffling would poke it’s head out of a burrow, only to decide that the world was a big scary place and rapidly disappear again. Kittiwakes, Razorbills, Guillemots and Shags are still present on the breeding cliffs and Grey Seals were sunbathing and scratching. It’s remarkable to think that our first Farne Islands Safari this year was mid-May and now, just 2 months later, many of the seabirds have departed the islands and the breeding season is nearly over. The Arctic Terns will soon be making that extraordinary journey to the far reaches of the Southern Hemisphere. Even as a full-time wildlife and birdwatching guide, the natural world still takes my breath away.

Yesterday we had a Druridge Bay Safari, so I collected our clients from near Rothbury and started our tour of some of southeast Northumberland’s birdwatching gems. One site always produces sightings of Sparrowhawk so when all of the Lapwings around the pond launched into the air I suggested that was what we should be looking for. Sure enough, it was flying low over the water towards us – carrying a Lapwing chick. Many people find it cruel, but the Sparrowhawk has chicks to feed and one Lapwing chick from among the many doesn’t harm the Lapwing population. It’s just the way that nature is.

Mediterranean Gull was, as ever, a feature of our first coastal stop before we worked our way North, in search of passage waders. Three Black-tailed Godwits, five Greenshank, four Ringed Plovers, ten Dunlin and twenty Knot, all in breeding plumage, as well as plenty of Redshank and Lapwing, and a few Oystercatcher, were all probing the soft mud in search of sustenance. Herons were watched at close range as they succesfully fished in each of the pools we visited.

The Grey Heron’s cousin, Little Egret, that we’ve watched for the last week wasn’t on the menu today; not for us anyway. Shortly before we arrived at East Chevington it had fallen victim to a Marsh Harrier. With all those passage waders around as well, but why eat fish fingers when you can have caviar?

Yesterday saw a trip that had been several months in planning; we first had an e-mail in January asking if we could arrange a trip to see otters in the wild, as a 60th birthday surprise…so yesterday morning I arrived at 11:00 to collect 5 adults and a 1-year old from the car park at Church Point, Newbiggin. The car park was heaving with people – and a horse-drawn carriage, as there was a wedding at St Bartholomew’s. After a brief familiarisation session using binoculars (not always the easiest thing, especially if you’ve never used a pair with a dioptre adjustment on one eyepiece), and an introduction to the fascinating world of gull identification (you would think we’d trained the Mediterranean Gull that appeared just seconds after I mentioned that we would search for one…), we set out on our mammal hunt. Discovering that some of the group had recently been to Rwanda in search of Mountain Gorillas really increased the pressure. Red Squirrels evaded our vision, but mid-July is not the ideal time to search for them, and we were soon heading to our first otter site. As we tucked in to our picnic lunch, all eyes were scanning the water surface. A pair of Mute Swans were watching intently over their brood of cygnets, and a Gadwall swam along with her eight ducklings. After one or two false alarms…a dark shape broke the surface; five pairs of eyes focussed on the ripples that remained, then it bobbed to the surface…followed by another…and another. For over 90 mins we watched them as they swam around, played, cleaned, scratched, play-fought and, at one point, two of them surfaced each having caught the same eel! They swam in unison to the bank before one managed to win the tug-of-war and disappeared into the long grass to consume its prize. A quick check of one of our Little Owl nest sites, and then our clients were on their way back to Amble, to freshen up in preparation for Otters and Badgers (part 2).

The meeting point for our evening trip was East Chevington. As I arrived, Dave Elliot was just leaving. Dave is a legendary finder of rare birds, but even I was amazed when he told me there was a Pacific Golden Plover on the South Pool. When my group arrived we walked along to view the pool and there it was; stunning in black and gold, and a genuine rarity. Leaving the growing crowd we continued down the coast before heading inland to our favourite badger sett. Getting everyone into relatively concealed positions well before sunset, we settled to wait, and watch. Badgers could be heard in the undergrowth but didn’t come out into the open; perhaps they’d been tipped off by the fox that did suddenly appear just a few metres away before spotting one of our group and vanishing back up a narrow track towards the sett. As we walked back to the vehicle, pipistrelle bats were picked up by our bat detector, but a large bat that made several close approaches to us frustratingly failed to make any sound. Otters, foxes, badgers, bats and birdwatching; we still think Northumberland is the equal of anywhere else in the UK, and an excellent place for a quiet, tranquil holiday. Come and join us.

I arrived at the Hareshaw Linn carpark in Bellingham yesterday evening, ready to lead the ‘Birds of Redesdale’ walk for Shepherd’s Walks. 10 walkers, plus myself and Jon, set out to walk along the North Tyne towards Redesmouth and then back to Bellingham across some cattle-filled fields.

Inland birdwatching in early July can be a bit hit-and-miss; all of the trees are heavily vegetated, adult birds are secretive and (generally) silent. We found some real gems though; a stunning adult male Redstart sat on a riverside fence post and allowed everyone the chance to appreciate a bird that most people in Britain probably aren’t aware of the existence of. Grey Wagtails were flycatching from mid-stream rocks at Redesmouth. Oystercatchers were, well, what more can you say about these big black-and-white birds with their extraordinary beaks? Other wildlife found along our route included Silver-ground Carpet, Bird-cherry Ermine and a Meadow Brown, calm and approachable as the cool of the evening replaced the heat of the day.

Once the walk was completed, the journey back to Southeast Northumberland, fortunately, was free of torrential rain and stranded cyclists.