Northumberland Sea Watching

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 of Kittiwakes. Best of all, though, we saw a total of 6 Great Skuas. 2 of these were particularly close in and we enjoyed my best ever views of this species. 

Waders were well-represented, and I logged Ringed Plover, Oystercatcher, Golden & Grey Plover, Sanderling, Dunlin, Whimbrel, Curlew and Redshank in the hour-long watch.

The evening finished with nice views of 2 Manx Shearwater, flying by with the Fulmars. 

While there weren't any of the rarer species that were seen at sites a bit further down the coast, it was a fantastic experience all the same. Probably one of my favourite sea watches. The mist pushed the birds so close and the constant sight and sound of waders, gulls and terns flying by made it really exciting.

The following day I got another hour at Annstead Point at the same time of day. The birds were a bit further out than on the previous night, but still plenty were passing by. We found 2 more Great Skuas and a Guillemot. There was also a pod of Harbour Porpoises.

Aside from these two sea watches, sea birds were still the birding highlight of the rest of the trip. As usual, Eiders (a year tick) gave fantastic views in Seahouses Harbour. This time, however, they were joined by 6 Goosanders; this is the first time I have seen Goosander here.

The surprise bird of the trip came on our walk from Craster to Dustanburgh Castle. Here, I watched as an Arctic Skua chased a flock of Kittiwakes. I don't get to see Skuas very often, and Northumberland (despite featuring just 2 hours of dedicated birding) certainly delivered!

The walk to Dustanburgh Castle


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Birding Trip Report: Mauritius 2019

Image
This is a birding trip report to Mauritius in July. Birding in Mauritius is not very conventional. Firstly, because there aren't many species you can see and secondly because of the strange mix of introduced and native species that inhabit the island. What little birding information there is available online tends to be from typical 'island-hopping' tours which spend a day or two on the island to sweep up all the endemics. My main motivation for writing this report is that there really isn't much information available online, especially for a family-motivated longer trip. In July 2019, I spent two weeks on Mauritius for a family holiday. The focus was not birding, but I was keen to see as many of the endemics as I could and also a broad range of species because all of the introduced species were generally new for me. All of the island endemics can be seen in just 2 days of birding (or even potentially in just 1) and in this time, the introduced species should take car
Read more

Evening Birding at Cannock Chase

Image
Keen to get out and see some different birds from those of the past few months, my dad and I went for an evening birding on Cannock Chase in Staffordshire on Saturday. We've never made the trip out here before, mostly because the journey along the M42 and A5 can be hellish in normal circumstances. This trip ended up being a great one for socially-distanced birding and we didn't see a single other person the whole time! Our main targets were the trio of night birds available on the chase - Nightjar, Long-Eared Owl and Woodcock, but any other heathland/woodland specialities were very welcome. Being new to the area, I'd done a bit of preliminary research, but pulled up at the Severn Springs car park at 7:30 without much of a plan. We followed a likely looking track out the back of the car park, heading left and soon racked up a long list of singing warblers, including Garden Warbler . As the woods thinned out, we enjoyed watching a Willow Warbler attending a nest hidden und
Read more

Spurn Residential Volunteering 2021

Image
Sometimes, when you've wanted to do something for a really long time, it can never quite live up to expectations. Thankfully, when it came to my visit to Spurn Bird Observatory that wasn't the case - it matched my wildest expectations. I visited Spurn for two weeks, thanks to the BTO's fantastic Young Bird Observatory Volunteer Fund which funded my stay at the observatory. I'm so grateful to the BTO for providing me with the opportunity through this grant. Having been successful in my application to become a residential volunteer at Spurn in autumn 2020, I was extremely disappointed when the pandemic meant that volunteers were no longer able to visit for anything other than the full 3 month autumn period (which I wouldn't have been able to do due to university). With a similar commitment needed to become a residential volunteer in 2021, I am extremely grateful to Jonnie Fisk for allowing me to come for 2 weeks with the YBOV fund in September before my university yea
Read more