Northumberland Part 1

Lesser Yellowlegs, Aberlady Bay, Lothian

Lesser Yellowlegs having a scratch!

Aberlady Bay - upstream from wooden bridge at full tide

And approximately 20 minutes earlier!

Budle Bay at low tide

Juvenile Curlew Sandpiper, Monkshouse Pool, Seahouses

Juvenile Curlew Sandpiper with juvenile Ruff, Monkshouse Pool

Eider eating crabs in the little Beadnell harbour

Watching the Eider it was amazing to see how deftly the duck managed to remove the shell from the crabs it caught

Juvenile Cormorant, Beadnell harbour

The Cormorant was as successful as the Eider in catching food in the harbour. Given that around 30 people were diving off the harbour walls, these two birds appeared completely undisturbed by the people and associated noise.

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Unfortunately Karen was none too chipper last weekend and so we ended up travelling to Northumberland a day late on the Sunday morning. In the past we have largely avoided the busy holiday periods and consequently it is usually quiet in Beadnell. August Bank Holiday Sunday was lifting with hundreds of people on the beach. Birding here was opportunistic rather than planned - the first birds I noted were the Eider and Cormorant feeding inside the stone harbour. Out at sea were around 20 more Eiders - a Fulmar, a Shag and approx 40 Gannets were also flying around the bay.

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Late afternoon and I managed a quick birding trip out to Seahouses. I started at Monkshouse Pool which is a small pond at the side of the road but due to its proximity to the dunes and the beach it always seems to attract something interesting. Straight away through the bins I spotted an interesting wader and when viewed through the scope I had found a juvenile Curlew Sandpiper! Three Dunlin soon appeared and the CS started to track round with them. One thing I like about the area is that there are relatively few birders and little gets reported - hence you have to find your own birds. Finding a Curlew Sand is always enjoyable. A Black-tailed Godwit, 91 Teal and 11 Snipe were also present.

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On then to Budle Bay which is a very large and flat piece of mud. An hour after high tide and the thousands of birds present were all showing nicely until some stupid bitch decided to take her Setter out onto the mud where it decided it was going to try and murder some Swans and anything else it could catch while she screamed her head off in vain trying to control the dog. People like this should be prohibited from owning dogs! Thankfully the dog caught nothing though it took a while for everything to settle down and the birds did so farther out.

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Nothing exciting though a dozen Sandwich Terns perched on a small sandbar near the shore were joined by an adult Arctic Tern. The next best finds were a Greenshank and 4 Whimbrels. A female Sparrowhawk also flew low over the bay clutching what appeared to be a Ringed Plover. The following counts were made at the bay:

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850+ Black-headed Gulls

680+ Herring Gulls

20+ Common Gulls

420+ Redshanks

1 Black-tailed Godwit

8 Bar-tailed Godwits

250+ Ringed Plovers

80+ Dunlin

240+ Curlew

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The next day was a dedicated birding day. The plan was to visit a number of sites around the coast to the north - however things didn't quite go to plan. I started at Monkshouse Pool early morning - the juvenile Curlew Sandpiper was still present and this time associating with a juvenile Ruff. Nice to see the two side by side and I was able to run through the various ID features. Five Dunlin were at the opposite end of the pool. Next I headed north to Aberlady Bay in Lothian. Effectively it is where a small stream cuts through a small section of salt marsh and is distinctly uninteresting when a rarity is not present. At one point a narrow and rickety wooden bridge crosses the stream.

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The star of the place recently has been a long staying Lesser Yellowlegs. When I arrived there was not a birder in sight - no doubt due to the length of its stay. There was also no Lesser Yellowlegs in sight either. I scanned the area quite closely - small numbers of other waders but no LYL. It then began to rain heavily so I retreated to the car. After around 90 minutes the rain eased and I got out for another scan. For some reason I decided to walk half way across the bridge where I found I could scan around a bend upstream. There on a sand bar in the middle of the stream was the Lesser Yellowlegs. Although it is slightly smaller than a Redshank, it doesn't look it. The long legs and long neck make it look a whole lot bigger and that posture is not something you can forget in a hurry - very distinctive. I watched it for around five minutes when a Redshank decided to have a pop at it and the yank shot off upstream, not to be seen again that day. Also present was a Greenshank.

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At this point things started to go wrong. A bunch of eastern european teenagers decided to cross the bridge - while squeezing past me they must have caught the slide which secures the battery cover on my camera. I had a noise and looked down to see the battery bounce off the bridge deck and into the stream. Bollocks! I ended up wading in and was lucky with the timing - twenty minutes later and I would have been waist deep. A short while later I realised that my company mobile phone was missing - I searched everywhere but to no avail. As I couldn't rule out the phone having been stolen, I headed back for home so I could report it. On the way home, driving through Bamburgh where the place was packed, a car on the opposite side of the road swerved around a pot hole and clipped my wing mirror. Double Bollocks!