Northumberland: Low Newton.

I am down in Northumberland again, based at my dad's just a few miles from Alnwick. On the way down I stopped at Broxden services for something to eat and saw my first Lesser Black-backed Gulls of the year. First port of call when I am down here is Low Newton, there is just something about the place that I like and it's only just around the corner. The weather wasn't looking too great but it was dry in the morning so I decided to give it a go.

On arriving at the car park the first thing I noticed was plenty of Goldfinch as well as the usual wood pigeons and I made my way down into the village and round to Stringer's scrapes first. Plenty of Teal about plus 4 fairly noisy Greylag geese. Wasn't else of note apart from 2 Herring Gull and a nice looking male Shoveler.

It didn't really feel much different from when I was last here back in December, dull, wet and cold and there wasn't much bird activity in the dunes apart from a Robin, a Linnet singing it's heart out, a few Dunnocks and a Meadow Pipit. At Newton pool a few more Greylags, a pair of Goldeneye and also two Moorhen right infront of the hide.

I carried on through the dunes not seeing much before coming down on the beach heading back towards the village. It wasn't until I was almost all the way back to the start of the beach that I started to see some more interesting birds. Quite a few Redshank about and small groups of Eider offshore. A bit further out were 16 Common Scoter and the usual Gulls and Cormorants present. As I was coming to the end of the beach I could see quite a lot of activity in amongst the rocks and seaweed. Firstly there were quite a few Bar-tailed Godwits on the beach but there was quite a bit activity in the seaweed itself and on closer inspection it was a a group of Turnstone. But some of these Turnstone looked a bit different and mixed in amongst them were a handful of Purple Sandpipers.

Bar-tailed Godwits + Oystercatchers

Turnstone + Purple Sandpipers - can be easily missed!

Plenty of Jackdaws, some with interesting degrees of a pale collar showing, Rock Pipits and a couple White Wagtails on the strandline but by now it was chucking it down with rain as I headed back to the car. I did plan to visit a couple more places in the afternoon but the weather didn't improve. That's me on 99 for the year now, the delayed Spring not helping things but hopefully back out tomorrow, the weather forecast looks better.

Year List Additions:
96. Lesser Black-backed Gull
97. Shoveler
98. Moorhen
99. Purple Sandpiper

Newton Pool...

It was a really nice evening on Friday (22nd) so I decided to head up to Low Newton for a walk. I have been to Low Newton once before but this I wanted to check out the scrapes that are talked about quite a bit in this blog HERE by a local birder from Beadnell.

I parked at the top of the hill and made my way down to the village square. It was pretty busy with people going for a stroll along the beach and to the local pub. There were plenty of Swallows and House Martins flying around the buildings and a handful of Swifts.

The scrapes are literally the first field behind the village. There were plenty of Black-headed Gulls and Mallard to be seen and a large group of Starlings flying around before they roosted in the reed bed adjacent to the scrapes. It was nice to stand and watched them for a few minutes.

There were also plenty of Linnets about with a few males singing from the fence posts and Reed Buntings darted about overhead. There wasn't much happening on the scrape so I carried on around the corner to Newton Pool and the hide there spotted a couple of juvenile Goldfinches on the way. Again plenty of Mallard but not a lot else unfortunately. I spent an hour or so in the hide but it was fairly unproductive.

Views of the scrapes.

I was starting to lose light now so I headed back but there were still plenty of Meadow Brown butterflies in the long grass to be seen.

As I made it back to the scrapes I had once last check all the way around when I noticed three ducks at the back of the water up-ending and feeding. I could tell straight away they were Shoveler a bird I hadn't seen this year or since I was last down in Northumberland in October 2011.

Distant poor quality shot in low light.

A check of my list year shows that Shoveler puts me up to 122 which equals last years total already. I then compared species seen with last year and I have not seen 21 species this year that I did last year which means I have seen 21 new birds this year. Some that I am missing I definately will not see but some I should really have seen already including Jay, Puffin, Snipe, Woodcock, Golden plover and Artic tern amongst others. I probably have seen Arctics down here but not close enough to confidently ID. In theory I only have a month or so to improve by British year list because the rest of the year will be spent in Finland. But to be honest they are only lists which don't mean much and I still just enjoy going out and seeing what turns up.