Banana Splits

https://youtu.be/XMl6HnhFFIA?si=67SmqBOGFdbaiTSJ

When frequent storms, onshore winds and heavy wing moult coincide it can make things tricky for some seabirds.  If this leads to uncharacteristic movements, towards land and sheltered feeding (and sometimes poor health and death) it is known as a wreck.  This has recently occurred in some areas of the deeper North Sea leading to some wrecking of auks and divers.

There maybe as many as 100 White-billed Divers wintering in the North Sea in some years but these are usually far offshore, well out of sight from the land.  Plane and boat surveys established that a larger population than previously thought is out there, but aside from specific staging areas off Aberdeenshire and the Outer Hebrides, they are still a rare bird.  

Over the past month the east coast from the Tyne up to Aberdeenshire has seen a wreck of White-billed Divers with dozens of birds involved.  Although a few have been picked up as tideline corpses the majority appear to be healthy enough but with flight so inefficient during wing moult, they have shifted from usual feeding ares (perhaps due to storms) and drifted onshore to shallow coasts and harbours to rest and feed.

As part of my writing project I had planned to head to Aberdeenshire and visit Portsoy where as many as 20 birds gather offshore in late spring.  However when a bird turned up on the River Blyth in Northumberland, and was then joined by a second, I could see the potential to see one of these iconic giant divers up close and remove an additional Scottish trip from my already packed itinerary.  

Early doors on Tyneside I watched a hulking banana bill offshore on calm seas, and when the bird wing-flapped it was clear the extent if the moult.  

In the harbour there was another, very confiding White-billed Diver that was a joy to watch as it preened and loafed around.  

I spent an hour or more drinking this bird in before heading west a little, into the North Pennines to seek out early spring gatherings of Black Grouse (one field alone held 50 birds, 20 others were seen nearby) and territorial upland waders as I headed down for a night at my folks in York.

Park Life

https://youtu.be/BxC-DmiRGzc?si=imHPKa7UECnjI8qv

A bit of a theme arose during the last week - a bit of parklife going on.  Firstly, on our way across from my folks in York to friends in Leeds, during the half-term break, we were passing Roundhay Park.  I like Roundhay a lot - I saw U2 on the Zooropa tour here back in the 90's and returned for 2000's Love Parade.  Like the 60's, anyone who says they remember the Love Parade probably wasn't there.  A midsummer meeting of 300,000 ravers enjoyed a Radio 1 sponsored field party of festival size proportions.  I was there and I do remember the closing set by Sasha just before everyone was supposed to go home but instead went off to any of a dozen sound systems that sprung up in the nearby woods, pulsing beats and bangers all the way through into Sunday's sleepy daylight.

My quick visit to Roundhay wasn't, despite the fond recollections, for memories sake.  A juvenile (2CY) Iceland Gull had taken to hanging out on the lake and afforded great views to all comers.

  

Once the kids were back in school and I was enjoying the gullfest in Cornwall, I took in the park at Helston, where a pair of Lesser Scaup had become silly tame in their habits on the boating lake.

Nearby, at Tehidy Country Park a smart female Ring-necked Duck was hanging around with the Tufties on the small lake there.  A confiding spryte, a fiercely vocal Firecrest, was also here flitting about the ivy clad tree trunks - as ever  full of chutzpah and utterly brilliant.

West End Gulls

https://youtu.be/0nTTGw2tXWU?si=jhsU9OfuxdXR_0cH

I had been planning a few days in Cornwall for some weeks, my current writing project is based around seawatching and seabirds, hence my trip in January down the North Sea coast.  The SW tip of Cornwall is a favourite area for my birding holidays and over the decades has proven very kind.  At 14 years old, back in the 80's, I joined the Leadley family on an October holiday, when Jono's mum pointed out a pale bird in the mist at Zennor Head, this proved to be the county's first Isabelline Shrike.  10 years later we were in the right place again, finding Britain's 3rd Blue Rock Thrush, a male and the county's first, down Cot Valley.  As a place to find rare birds I have been no where more productive; Aquatic Warbler, Greenish Warbler, Surf Scoter, Fea's Petrel, Wilson's Petrel, Azores Gull, and most recently a Barolo's Shearwater, have all raised my pulse to pounding, through the adrenaline surge of discovery.  A smorgasbord of american waders and ducks has often been on offer during these trips and holidays. The eastern warblers, pipits and buntings, sprytes and skulkers alike, also often feature and the outliers have included Little Bustard and Booted Eagle.  It's a very tempting part of the country to consider moving to in the future - we'll have to see.

I had a couple of false starts during early February as family commitments and the unrelenting wet, windy weather led to last minute postponements.  I was keen to catch up with a Pacific Diver (a bird I've not seen this side of the pond) and the possibility of seeing both Bonaparte's and Ring-billed Gull certainly leant into the seabird theme.  I was also aware that auks moved past the peninsular in impressive numbers during late winter and hoped to see some of that passage if I could.  

We were staying with friends in South London (visiting the London Wetlands Centre and unwittingly starting a pop-up Gull ID workshop around a couple of Caspian Gulls) when the news of a Ross's Gull in Newlyn harbour broke.  This was all the catalyst I needed to push me towards Cornwall, the Arctic waif was still present at dusk, and I decided now was the time to instigate my Cornish break.

I was at the harbour early doors, not as early as the keenest, who had seen the bird in the gloaming, but shortly before my arrival the bird had flown out to sea.  I scoped the roof of Lidl, across the bay, and was surprised that the loafing gulls could be seen quite easily - and there amongst them the Ross's Gull.  I won't lie, I was a teeny bit disappointed that this was my first view, like many, I have bought into the myth and enigma we birders have created around Ross's Gull.  For a scarce bird of remote, high tundra and open sea, hanging out on a supermarket roof on the edge of town threatens to burst the romantic bubble.  Not for long though, I popped over for a closer look during which time the gull had returned to the harbour, and on my return was treated to prolonged, close and dynamic views of the most enigmatic of gulls.  It dip fed over the water, oddly reminiscent of a Leach's Petrel,  cruised up and down the sea wall, and twisted back and forth, constantly on the move.  I decided there and then that I would keep returning over my days on the peninsular, between my searches for the divers and the other scarce gulls.

And that's what I did, and spent many hours drinking in this magical bird, mostly in flight, but on my last visit it took a short break from feeding to preen on the rocks and beach at Tolcarne, and offering the kind of views I had only dreamt of.  Boom.  I was fully sated.  

Between time with this bird I managed to see a lot of other gulls - there was a constant movement of Kittiwakes out of Mount's Bay through strong southerlies (and impressive numbers of auks on the move too), I found the 2CY Bonaparte's Gull in the large evening roost at East Green, Penzance and on the Hayle there were Iceland, Little and Yellow-legged Gull amongst the roosting throngs and nearby, from Lelant Saltings persistence paid off with great views of the adult Ring-billed Gull after 6 visits to check the loafing Common Gulls there. So ended a fantastic few days birding, time spent with the undoubted star, the Ross's Gull, amongst 14 species of gull, burnt upon my memory.

I lost my glasses half way through the first day so had more difficulty than usual with digiscoping, as I couldn't really see any detail on the screen.  On strict instructions from my better (and evidently more optomistic) half I retraced my steps the following day and was chuffed to pieces when I was reunited with the glasses along the grassy verge at Hayle.  But in the meantime I had struggled with videoing both the Pacific Diver and Bonaparte's Gull, where I'd had to take a punt and point and shoot in the right direction, not sure of what I was videoing.  A couple of poor, pixely videograbs were all those were worth.

Washed Out

https://youtu.be/n7bVQ5YSjXQ?si=_FC7KbIeqELWFQlD

Winter on the Washes present stacks of wildfowl.  This are generally fewer thousands less than in the past, when flooding was often shallower and water levels more dynamic, offering  a greater range of feeding opportunities along the many miles of washlands.  This suits dabblers and diving duck alike.  Recently the Ouse Washes have been pretty full of water and some stretches have been a little birdless but a drake Ferruginous Duck, presumably making the hop from nearby Colne GP, has been hanging out with the Pochard at Chain Corner.  Fudge Ducks get a rough ride in Cambs in terms of being subject to high scepticism around their provenance and hybridism.  But still nice to have a look at one close to home though.

Waves of Russian White-fronts and Tundra Beans have arrived in the UK since Xmas, much of the action has focused a little way off the Washes at Sutton North Fen where 40 or so Beans and 30 odd White-fronts joined the copious Greylag and naturalised Barnacles around the private gravel pits.  Into Feb more White-fronts arrived with small flocks dotted about.  A 2,500 flock of Pink-feet at Suspension Bridge nr Welney WWT pulled in 3 Beans and 30+ White-fronts.

Further out on the fen a flock of 262 Bewick's (and 70 nearer Littleport) were the most Ben and I had seen locally for some years.

Up North Kids

https://youtu.be/p6DLhupXvFE?si=4GGr0WQxZLlU2nwd

Recently, I took a weeks trip up to old stomping grounds in the far north of Scotland.  Wonderful coastline and birding.  

I made my way southwards down the east coast checking bays, firths, rivers, burns and lochs.  From Sutherland to Aberdeenshire, Fife, Lothian and down into the wild beaches of Northumbria, sea duck were the main draw with thousands of scoter and eiders rubbing shoulders with many hundreds of Long-tailed Ducks and Mergansers.  There were lesser numbers of Scaup, Velvet Scoter, Slavonian Grebes and Black Guillemots.  A couple of Surf Scoters, a White-winged Scoter, King Eider and 2 different Black Scoter made up the rares.  Great Northern Divers were frequent, Red-throats less so and a single Black-throated Diver showed very well where the town meets the sea amidst the docks and marina at Hartlepool.  

I saw a couple of White-tailed Eagles in Caithness and the wintering bird frequenting my teenage haunts along the Lower Derwent Valley, alongside 9 Tundra Bean Geese.  Back in the Fens I had a look at the Snow Goose, a bird that during my visit ignored the large flock of  feeding Whooper Swans and Pink-feet preferring to hang with a small group of grazing Mute Swans; it did not impress wildly.  At Eldernell I located 3 of the hedgerow parliament of cryptic Long-eared Owls, fantastic birds.

Young Americans

https://youtu.be/ydLcs4VrjZQ?si=AYx4QpogRlRHrCKu

Back, at the tail end of 2025, Isleham Washes had a purple patch.  Suitably muddy, with falling water levels the edges of this pool are dependant upon the water level in the River Lark.  In turn, this level is impacted by the control of water through Denver Sluice and any tweaking by the IDB's more locally.  In short the water levels at Isleham appear unpredictable, so the potential of the site to attract migrant waders is rarely realised.  

This autumn though, the arrival of a double whammy of American waders showed that Isleham could draw in the scarcities, as both Lesser Yellowlegs and Pectoral Sandpiper appeared.

Both these birds, juveniles, had not been long out if the nest before starting their migration.  Juvenile Pectoral Sandpipers occur with such frequency in autumn that the extension of breeding areas eastwards to Greenland and westwards to the Taimyr peninsular in Russia might be quite considerable.  The UK is certainly on the migration route for some of these birds.  The Yellowlegs is in a spirraling decline in the US, but remains one of the more frequent waders to cross the pond.  This bird was jittery, and very freshly plumaged, it didn't remain long and took a long flight out towards Lakenheath as we left, before re-appearing later in the day.

Autumnal visits to Titchwell gifted fantastic views of a juvenile American Golden Plover and Siberian sprytes along the coast in the form of Pallas's, Hume's and Yellow-browed Warblers and a good fall of Firecrests.

Closer to home both Dartford Warbler and Red-throated Diver graced the Ely10, both new birds for me within the area (thanks to Rachel and David for sharing the news of their finds so quickly).