Saturday 17 April 2010

CBC Visit No. 3

This morning I did my third common bird census (CBC) visit to Druridge. It was a cold start but soon brightened up and got warmer, the strengthening westerly wind meant I had the best of the day.

It was pretty quiet though, with very few migrants about, three singing willow warblers were mapped quite soon into the visit. I was out on the old haul road when things got a little bit more exciting, firstly two whimbrel flew north calling, then I noticed a skylark chasing another bird, which turned out to be a lapland bunting. It was certainly not a species I was expecting in mid-April, I had to do a double take, thankfully it posed for piccies for a short while. I bet there aren't many lapland buntings seen in Northumberland this late.

male lapland bunting on the haul road

Another nice bonus was three black-tailed godwits on the Budge fields.

By the time I got the survey finished I met up with ADMc and Roger Foster (bemoaning the surrender of his pager), a couple of swallows and some sand martins were moving through, no house martins yet though, Andy also picked a very high buzzard overhead.

It was also interesting to see how many shelduck are about at the moment, six were on the grass when I arrived and few were out in the dunes later. A couple flew over 'laughing' at me on the haul road - they weren't watching a lap bunting though.

Tomorrow is WeBS day so I'll have to go back to Druridge - Damn!

108 black-tailed godwit

2 comments:

abbey meadows said...

Nice record. Lucky it stayed on that post long enough to get that pic. Nearly all my sightings are in the air calling. Never had an April bird.

Ghost of Stringer said...

Cracking lap ! A nice find...