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Northumberland

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GREY-HEADED LAPWING AT LOW NEWTON - FIRST FOR BRITAIN

Mayday Mayday! Grey-headed Lapwing at Low Newton scrapes, Northumberland 1 May 2023.

‘There are some birds you just can’t say no to’ Ken Shaw. This was another. Mark Varley and I were very late to the party but happily the Bank Holiday roads were clear of traffic and we made good progress to Low Newton, where the Grey-headed Lapwing was still present by a small pool behind the avocet colony. Repeat avocet colony! There’s a sentence that would have been unthinkable when I first visited this lovely spot on the Northumberland coast on 16 May 1981. I see from my notebook that I saw two new birds here on that day – Little Gull and Common Stonechat. I couldn’t imagine what I would be watching here 42 years later! 8000km from home Grey-headed Lapwing is one of the most extreme vagrants that I’ve seen in the UK, and closest I’d seen before today was Kaziranga in Assam. It looked to be feeding in the damp grass between the two pools of Gary Woodburn, the finder’s scrape just behind the village. Patting the ground with its feet, like gulls do. It got some hassle from the avocets so I will be surprised if it settles here for long. As we watched it, Sand Martins skimmed the water’s surface, and a Yellow Wagtail was among the Pied Wagtails on the near edge of the pool. Shelduck, Gadwall and shoveler were also in residence, what a terrific little place! Some familiar faces included Adam Archer and Tony Barter on their day tour of the England. This morning they were watching Forster’s Tern on Brownsea Island, Poole Harbour!!! Lee Evans also rolled up before sunset. However, things are not all well in Northumberland, we couldn’t find a single chippy open in Seahouses after 8 o’clock and had to make do with a kebab instead. What is this country coming to?

Grey-headed Lapwing’s breeding range is actually to the east of Mongolia! Handbook of the Birds of the World (vol. 3) published by Lynx Editions

No. 15. Grey-headed Lapwing is a big lapwing! It does rather stand out! Handbook of the Birds of the World (vol. 3) published by Lynx Editions

My 1981 diary excerpt

Falling asleep at the scope! Adam Archer and Tony Barter’s UK day tour! No lifer too far!

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ASIAN DESERT WARBLER ON HOLY ISLAND

Asian Desert Warbler, The Snook, Holy Island 16 June 2020 (Mike Watson) CLICK ON IMAGES FOR LIGHTBOX

‘NORTHUMBERLAND OWES US’, we thought, referring to the pair of Ivory Gulls, which Rocket and I had missed on another of our miserable dips, now seven(!) years ago. However, we were pretty sure that the Asian Desert Warbler found by my old friend Mike Carr yesterday evening on Holy Island would stay a few more hours until we got there. Lucky for us it did but it was a strange journey, having to drive there in convoy in separate cars, owing to the Covid-19 social distancing rules. We chatted over the phone on handsfree a few times along the way, passing the Angel of the North, ‘Wow, what’s that?’ said Alexander and soon afterwards we passed signs to my old home village, Whickham before we raced up the A1 to Holy Island (or Lindisfarne). This was Alexander’s first visit to Holy Island and the ebbing tide still covered the causeway as we joined a small queue of cars waiting to cross at Beal, which was very exciting for him! A couple of whimbrels flew overhead calling and a Little Egret was out on the saltmarsh. I mentioned how Mike Carr and I had to push Andy Mould’s old mk I Ford Capri off the causeway on a rising tide in 1984, with water up to our knees and a fountain of seawater spraying up out of his gearbox. The car died the following week on an aborted trip to the Peak District.

The desert warbler was less exciting for Alexander though, as it remained inside the cover of some small isolated pines on the Snook for long periods, in poor light and usually mostly obscured. It did give up in the end and he could at least see its beady yellow iris through my binos. Even though it was my third in the UK after the Plymouth and Blakeney Point birds in the 1990s, and I have seen lots in the Middle East, I couldn’t say no to another in one of my favourite places. The visit brought back memories of my first BB rarity, which was here on 3 October 1981, a Scarlet Rosefinch found by Colin Bradshaw in the garden of Snook House and then there was the male subalpine warbler I found here with Keith Regan in May 1989 (I must get around to checking which subspecies that was). I had been thinking lately about going a little further afield than Lancashire for the first time since lockdown started, now that the rules have been relaxed a bit. So I was pleased to see only a small crowd, of around 40 people at any one time and it was nice to catch up with another old birding friend Ian Fisher. The rain held off and it turned into a grand day out among a carpet of marsh orchids!

Asian Desert Warbler, The Snook, Holy Island 16 June 2020 (Mike Watson)

‘Are we going to drive across?’


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BLACK SCOTER & PACIFIC LOON IN NORTHUMBERLAND

Pacific Loon, East Chevington, Northumberland

A DAY OUT ON THE NORTHUMBERLAND COAST with Mark Varley resulted in another UK lifer, the long overdue Black Scoter off the dunes at Cheswick Shiel. It took over 5.5 hours to find it in tricky conditions at times but mostly because it was probably not where we were looking at the time. We checked hundreds of Common Scoter bills until Mark eventually picked it out more or less right in front of us. Its bill like an yellow-orange light bulb. I'd been saving this one until later and I guess now it's later. There were plenty of other birds along Cheswick Sands today, including: Great Northern (two), Black-throated (one) and Red-throated (c.20) Divers; Slavonian Grebe (one); Long-tailed Duck (c.30); Common Eider; Red-breasted Merganser; Northern Fulmar (one); Razorbills and Common Guillemots; European Shags and a female Merlin, which bombed down the beach with a crow in hot pursuit. The scoter flocks were being harassed constantly by large gulls and moved around quite a lot. The day started off bright and sunny but we got rained on about half way through before the Black Scoter materialised, which did not leave much time for the Pacific Loon at East Chevington. It was surprisingly elusive, diving frequently but it did give us one nice fly past. That's all five loon species in a couple of weeks. Not such an incredible record bearing in mind we passed the site of the first one near Knaresborough on the way there and back. I wonder how many other records are lurking in the photo archives waiting to be identified? Also here of note were: kingfisher and Pink-footed Geese.

Black Scoter, Cheswick Sands

Now then! I'm supposed to find the birds! A great bit of spotting by Mark Varley saved the day.

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