Midlands Birding Blog

My family and I went on holiday to Northumberland for a few days this week. With a forecast of strong northerly winds and regular showers, I was hoping that I might get in a couple of hours of sea watching.  Seahouses is the best place for close views of Eider Being a Leicestershire birder, any sort of Skua or Shearwater is usually a year tick if not a lifer for me! So I was hoping for a few new birds for my year list. Sure enough, I found myself in Seahouses on Tuesday evening and managed to get in an hour of sea watching from Annstead Point before dark. The visibility was terrible, and this forced birds really close in to shore. It was evident straight away that birds were moving.  Annstead Point (at the tip of the golf course) - to get here walk South along the coastal path from Seahouses harbour. Standing in front of the hide here provides shelter from the wind and rain A constant stream of gulls and terns flew by. We picked out both Arctic and Sandwich Terns and hundreds ...

A few months ago in June, I set out around Nottinghamshire & Yorkshire to try and beat my previous day record of 101 birds (from Norfolk in January 2018). Despite a great day, with a lifer of Woodlark, I failed on my day list target. On Sunday, however, I managed 105 species, beating my previous record. 93 of these were at Frampton Marsh alone in just 6 hours on the reserve!  The day didn't start off with this in mind. Arriving with my dad at Frampton at 08:15, I had two main targets: 1. to see 20 species of wader in a day (something I've somehow never previously managed) and 2. to find the Temminck's Stint which had been around on the reserve for a few days but been notoriously elusive. This would be a UK lifer, having previously seen one only at Aiguamolls in Spain. I've always loved waders. I'm not quite sure why but from an early age Curlew Sandpiper and Little Stint were two of my favourite birds. I love scanning through a teaming scrape, not knowing what ...