A Fantastic Winter Seawatch!

Mark phoned me on Friday and told me I might want to go seawatching on Sunday. How glad am I that I took his advice!

This was one of the best seawatches I have had. The wind was North-Westerly, force 6-7 and there were regular, torrential downpours - apart from that it was lovely!!

Almost all of the birds we saw were going North, into the wind, as seems to be the norm here. The theory is, at least after a strong northerly blow, that birds are returning North, having been pushed South by the wind. However on days like today, the birds are heading North before the wind has died down. Perhaps they drift South on the sea overnight, then feel they have to re-orient themselves the next day, regardless of how horrible the weather is!

The obvious highlights are indicated in blue below, but saying that we had 3 diver species, 3 skua species, 2 shearwater species, 2 petrel species, 4 auk species (without puffin!) and 11 duck species illustrates just how good it was today!!

Red-throated Diver 5N 6S
Black-throated Diver 1N
Great Northern Diver 4N
Manx Shearwater 2N
Balearic Shearwater 1N
Fulmar 230 N
"blue" Fulmar 1N
Leach's Petrel 1N
Storm Petrel 1N
Gannet 70N
Eider 11N 14S
Common Scoter 254N 12S
Velvet Scoter 2N
Long-tailed Duck 4N
Gadwall 2N
Wigeon 9N
Teal 19N 1S
Pochard 4N
Goldeneye 4N 1S
Red-breasted Merganser 10N 6S
Shoveller 2N
Grey Plover 11N
Bar-tailed Godwit 9N
Purple Sandpiper 4N
Snipe 1N
Bonxie 12N 1S
Pomarine Skua 1N
Arctic Skua 1N
Little Gull 8N
argentatus Herring Gull 2N
Kittiwake 2700+N
Black Guillemot 1N
Little Auk 2N

More camera testing

This new dSLR has a video or "live view" mode. It really doesn't allow great results when hand-held, especially with the long lens on. However perhaps it might be useful for capturing fly-pasts during seawatching from a tripod. Here's a first attempt from the tripod - things can only get better!

Brooklyn Birding

I have just arrived back from a week in Brooklyn, during which I was lucky enough to go birding in Prospect Park most mornings before breakfast. Temperatures were pretty low (close to freezing on some days) and the light was not that good for photography. But I had lots of fun and saw some great birds.

Thanks to the people at the Prospect Park Birding Blog for providing up-to-date sightings which whetted my appetite before I arrived. What a great local patch to have!

I have only seen a handful of Winter Wrens in the USA, so finding this chap in the undergrowth was a real thrill (despite seeing them all the time in the UK).


Winter Wren


Winter Wren - dodgy photos - it was nearly dark!

Another highlight were the woodpeckers - four species seen - and in particular the absolutely tiny Downy Woodpeckers. They are becoming one of my favourite species! This pair were trying to find food inside some pretty thin grass stems - fascinating to watch a sparrow-sized woodpecker at work:


Downy Woodpecker (male) - what a great pose - but this is what happens when you change the white-balance setting on the camera by mistake!


Downy Woodpecker (male)


Downy Woodpecker (female)

The two common Sparrow species were Song and White-throated, both of which can be pretty birds:


White-throated Sparrow


Song Sparrow

and here are some other miscellaneous birds from the park.


American Robin


Pied-billed Grebe


Belted Kingfisher


Ring-billed Gull

Seawatching Fun

Good Seawatching so far this weekend. Took Friday off and was rewarded by

ADULT SABINES GULL

early on - picked up simultaneously by the two observatory residents!

Friday evening was a big disappointment with only a few Arctic Skuas migrating south in the Northerly wind and Manx Shearwaters coming past at 1 per hour!

Today was a little better - no increase in skuas or shearwaters but a small increase in Teal (91 N) and Common Scoters (68 N).

That is, until about 9.00am when for no apparent reason a Sooty Shearwater came North pretty much right in front of the obs!





Sooty Shearwater

A visit to Tommy Thompson Park, Toronto - 28th July 2008

After attending a conference in Toronto, I had an afternoon trip to Tommy Thompson Park, a man-made spit sticking into Lake Ontario from the middle of Toronto.

View Larger Map


It is a brilliant place, with lagoons, lots of cover for passerine migrants and a huge colony of Double-crested Cormorants. The cormorants were magic, flying past almost constantly in large, dynamic flocks



lots of breeding Eastern Kingbirds giving good views



flocks of young hirundines:



and a few migrants, including this empidonax flycatcher that I'm still trying to identify:



What a fantastic place - I would love to bird here during the migration period.

Isn't Seawatching Brilliant!

What a brilliant seawatch today!

1 1st Summer Sabine's Gull - found by the Mr. Miyagi of Whitburn Obs!
2 adult Pomarine Skuas
1 Balearic Shearwater - flew through our field of view while watching the Sabine's !

and this:


... it's in the top left hand corner of the picture if you can't see it!





Wow - I actually managed to photograph a Minke Whale!

It was found by someone on their first visit to the obs this year!

The third image shows both its fin and tail as it is diving.

Here's a blow-up of the best picture:

Dawdon Blast Beach

Dawdon Blast Beach and the nearby Hawthorn Quarry have a pretty good history of turning up migrants. Radde's Warbler, Richard's Pipit, Pallas's Warbler, Great Grey Shrike, Wryneck, Quail and Yellow-browed Warbler are just some of the birds which have turned up over the years.

But I can empty a migrant hotspot just by turning up with my bins!

So it's no surprise that over the last week, with the hundreds of scarce and rare birds on the east coast, the best bird I have seen at the Blast Beach is this cute juvenile Stonechat.



At least the council, as part of their "improvements", have installed some convenient Red-footed Falcon and Red-backed Shrike perches!

No Firecrest .. yet !

Visited Mount Pleasant to look for the Firecrest, but no joy.
This wren sat up briefly for a half-decent photo.

NZ Falcon

This New Zealand Falcon was near the Franz Josef Glacier.



It sat in the rain for at least half an hour !

NZ Highlights

Here are some highlights from my recent trip to New Zealand


Red-billed Gull


Salvin's Albatross


Northern Giant Petrel


Southern Royal Albatross


New Zealand Robin



Kea

Med Gull

Med Gull's are gorgeous!
This one was at Newburn near Seaton Carew.