{"id":694,"date":"2010-09-17T07:00:44","date_gmt":"2010-09-17T07:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=694"},"modified":"2015-12-30T12:45:53","modified_gmt":"2015-12-30T11:45:53","slug":"white-is-the-new-black","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/white-is-the-new-black","title":{"rendered":"White is the new Black"},"content":{"rendered":"

We had back-to back birdwatching trips earlier\u00a0this week, covering two of our favourite areas.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday afternoon I collected Keith and Jen from home in Monkseaton and we headed northwards up the Northumberland coast.\u00a0 Our destination was the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, one of the birding hot-spots of the entire country.\u00a0 The strong winds were the only downside to the afternoon, but the birdwatching was good.\u00a0 After checking out a large group of Grey Seals<\/em><\/strong> we covered the area around the harbour and the Rocket Field.\u00a0 Bar-tailed Godwits, Common Redshank <\/em><\/strong>and lots of Ringed Plover<\/em><\/strong> were along the shoreline and a delightful charm of Goldfinches<\/em><\/strong> were around the Heugh.\u00a0 A distant group of Lapwings<\/em><\/strong>, Starlings<\/em><\/strong> and Golden Plover<\/em><\/strong> took to the air and the cause of their alarm was glimpsed briefly, although too briefly and too distant to make a positive ID.\u00a0 Holy Island birdwatching stalwart Ian Kerr put us on to a Little Stint<\/em><\/strong> and, as we headed back through the village, groups of Golden Plover<\/em><\/strong> passed overhead.\u00a0 Re-tracing our route back down the coast and checking the Budle Bay on the rising tide, we were just discussing the indications of the presence of predators when a huge number of birds lifted from the mud.\u00a0 As well as the gulls and waders, Jackdaws, Rooks<\/em><\/strong> and Woodpigeons<\/em><\/strong> joined the throng as they came out of adjacent fields and trees.\u00a0 This time the culprit was seen and identified; a Peregrine<\/em><\/strong>, that most majestic of raptors and one of the highlights of any birdwatching day on the Northumberland coast in the autumn and winter.\u00a0 A quick seawatch produced Sandwich Terns<\/em><\/strong> feeding, and Gannets<\/em><\/strong> soaring effortlessly on the breeze.<\/p>\n

Wednesday was a full day out around Druridge Bay and Southeast Northumberland.\u00a0 I collected Jayne and Andrew from Seahouses, and then Hilary and John from Alnmouth, before beginning our tour of some of the best birdwatching spots in our local area.\u00a0 While we were watching Lapwings, Redshanks, Greenshanks, Ruff, Herons <\/em><\/strong>and Cormorants <\/em><\/strong>on the River Wansbeck I could hear a rough\u00a0‘sreee’ call from high overhead.\u00a0 The strong breeze meant that it wasn’t straightforward to locate the bird, but eventually I picked it out.\u00a0 It was an unfamiliar call, but a familiar species; a juvenile Common Cuckoo<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 The walk back along the river produced a nice flock of\u00a0Long-tailed Tits<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 After lunch we stopped off at Cresswell Pond.\u00a0 Hilary and John mentioned that they’d visited Cresswell once before – when they noticed a large group of birders and stopped, managing to see a Buff-breasted Sandpiper<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Northumberland<\/a>
Buff-breasted Sandpiper and Ruff, Cresswell Pond, Northumberland 12\/09\/2008<\/figcaption><\/figure>With luck like that, we joked about\u00a0what this visit could produce..<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

When we arrived at the hide, Jaybee<\/a> mentioned that he’d had a juvenile Sandwich Tern<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 I scanned the pond but couldn’t see\u00a0the tern anywhere and we settled to enjoying the quite remarkable views of Common Snipe<\/em><\/strong> that were available.\u00a0 After checking through the assembled ducks, gulls and waders I scanned across the pond again and spotted a tern dip-feeding near the causeway.\u00a0 The bird’s behaviour, combined with it’s very dark back, white rump and silver-grey wings caused me to get rather excited.\u00a0 White-winged Black Tern<\/em><\/strong> is a very special bird, and\u00a0a personal highlight\u00a0as it’s the third Chlidonias <\/em>tern that I’ve found in Northumberland.\u00a0 Whiskered Tern<\/em><\/strong> is very rare and\u00a0Black Tern<\/em><\/strong> is always a nice bird to see but White-winged Black Tern <\/em><\/strong>is such a beautiful species.\u00a0 Jaybee kindly sent me some images to use \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

\"White-winged<\/a>
White-winged Black Tern, Cresswell Pond, Northumberland 15\/09\/2010<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Highlight<\/a>
White-winged Black Tern, Cresswell Pond, Northumberland 15\/09\/2010<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"White-winged<\/a>
White-winged Black Tern, Cresswell Pond, Northumberland 15\/09\/2010<\/figcaption><\/figure>As other birders began to arrive to\u00a0enjoy\u00a0the fruit of\u00a0our good fortune we continued up the coast.\u00a0 Eiders <\/em><\/strong>and a Goosander<\/em><\/strong>, as well as some very obliging Grey Herons,<\/em><\/strong> were seen as we stopped by the River Coquet.\u00a0 A superb couple of day’s birdwatching, a beautiful rarity and clients who were excellent company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We had back-to back birdwatching trips earlier\u00a0this week, covering two of our favourite areas. On Tuesday afternoon I collected Keith and Jen from home in Monkseaton and we headed northwards up the Northumberland coast.\u00a0 Our destination was the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, one of the birding hot-spots of the entire country.\u00a0 The strong winds were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,10,5,141,139],"tags":[147,823,384,380,381,373,372,185,175,103,378,332,283,835,382,123,386,121,825,55,358,383,241,385,379,158],"class_list":["post-694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-lindisfarne","category-northumberland","category-northumberland-coast","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-bar-tailed-godwit","tag-birdwatching","tag-black-tern","tag-buff-breasted-sandpiper","tag-common-cuckoo","tag-common-snipe","tag-cormorant","tag-gannet","tag-golden-plover","tag-goldfinch","tag-goosander","tag-greenshank","tag-grey-heron","tag-grey-seal","tag-jackdaw","tag-lapwing","tag-little-stint","tag-long-tailed-tit","tag-northumberland","tag-peregrine","tag-redshank","tag-rook","tag-ruff","tag-whiskered-tern","tag-white-winged-black-tern","tag-woodpigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":701,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694\/revisions\/701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}