The Farne Isles

Like I said in my previous post, after ringing all the Barn Owl chicks, the following day Sue and I set off for a few days in Northumberland, staying at a village called Beadnell, just a couple of miles south of Seahouses. It's and area of the UK I've never visited before but why I just don't know - it's such a beautiful part of the country. Our aim was to visit the Farne Isles - an archipelago of Isles about one and half miles off the north east coast of Britain, where there are Arctic and Common Tern colonies, along with Puffin, Guillemots, Razorbills and Kittiwakes breeding in large numbers and with a few Shag mixed in there as well. We also wanted to see what else there was to do on the north east coast. After an uneventful journey up the A1, we arrived in good time for us to explore the Farnes on the Sunday afternoon, taking a small catamaran tour around the islands before landing for an hour or so on Inner Farne which is  owned by the National Trust. ( we went back again on the Tuesday and managed to arrange to stay an extra hour with the boat company we used as they weren't fully booked). What a place! Although you have limited access on the island, having to stay mainly to the board walks, you are surrounded by hundreds of breeding birds - all within arms' reach! You are advised to wear a hat which you definitely need, as the first 300 yards is where the Arctic Tern are nesting and it's like running the gauntlet! - you get dive-bombed, landed on, pecked regularly - as well as getting pooped on!!  Despite all of this, it's absolutely amazing and brilliant! Tern chicks are almost underfoot in some places, adult birds are sitting on eggs along the side of the boardwalk and chicks ranged from a few days old to fledglings. it was amazing to watch the Puffins coming in off the sea with their beaks full of sand eels who had their own gauntlet to run as they tried to avoid being harassed by Black-headed and Herring Gulls who were trying to take the food off of them.

                                                                  Arctic Tern

                                                 Arctic Tern looking for another 'victim'

                                                             Arctic coming in to land

                                                                    Arctic Tern

                                        Above is a Black-headed Gull and below is a Herring Gull                                                                         - two of the culprits who mugged the Puffins!!

       

                 ......And this is what they were waiting for - a Puffin with a beak-full of sand eels

                                                                Coming in to land

                                                 Now, where did I leave those chicks??


Below are some images of other birds we saw on our tour of the islands before we landed on Inner Farne.

                                                                 Juvenile Guillemot

                                            Two Guillemot with a Bridled variety

                                                           Puffin off on a fishing trip

                                   Juvenile Shag - there were a lot of these around the islands

                                                            Kittiwake with chicks

                                                                        Adult Shag

                                                                            Razorbills


Not only is there fantastic birdlife to view, there is also a large Grey Seal colony, and,as with the birds, the boat skipper gets you in for some real close-up views of these inquisitive animals

                                                                Grey Seal colony

                                                 This one came for a closer look at us!

 Whilst you are doing the island tour, we saw lots of birds - including this large flock of Gannets


Though eider Duck breed on the Farne Isles, as soon as they can, they bring their ducklings across to the mainland. These were in the harbour at Seahouses. There were some drakes about, but they were too far out to get an image.

                                                                  Adult female Eider

                                                                         Eider chick

In between our visits to |Inner Farne, we decided to visit Holy Island (Lindisfarne) on the Monday for a look around. We drove over the causeway, arriving at 10.30 am; we only had a couple of hours or so to check out the priory and walk around the village before we needed to leave for the mainland, as the tide would be returning at 13.15, and we would have been stuck then until 22.00 before the causeway would have been clear to cross. On our way back, we stopped at The Grace Darling museum in Bamburgh which we had been recommended to visit; Grace Darling was a young Victorian heroine of 23 years who, along with her father, rowed out over 400 yards from Longstone Lighthouse, in very high seas, to rescue nine people who had survived a shipwreck in the night, and were stranded on the rocks. She was the first woman to be presented with a silver medal for gallantry by the RNLI. She sadly died from consumption just three years later. The museum is well worth a visit.

                                                               Longstone Lighthouse

                                                                  Bamburgh Castle

 Brownsman Lighthouse -This is the original lighthouse where Grace and her family lived before moving to the new Longstone Lighthouse. Although they moved to Longstone, they still rowed back to this island on a regular basis, as they kept a garden here growing vegetables etc. since their new home was built on rock with nowhere to cultivate.

 I hope you have enjoyed reading about our trip to Northumberland, and as always, any comments are welcome.

Barn Owls of South Leicestershire

Sorry it's been a while since my last post, but the old replacement hip has taken its toll on my getting out and about, but i'm glad to say it's as good as new now, and no more pain - just got to sort the rest of my body out now! Anyway, enough about my ageing ailments and  back to the 'birding' stuff.  I'm sure I've mentioned before that, with my good mate Paul Riddle, [his blog owlsaboutthatthen -well worth a look) I've been helping to make and erect Little Owl and Barn Owl boxes all over South Leicestershire. We've probably got well over a 100 boxes in place now, and the Little Owl population in this area is thriving; Paul has discovered well over 200 sites where this owl can be found, and we have had good success with our box programme, but over the last 3 or 4 years we have concentrated more on Barn Owls, as the population in this area was poor to say the least, with only 2 or 3 pairs that Paul new of. I am pleased to say that now, in 2016, we probably have at least 12 to 16 pairs to our knowledge, but, as you can imagine, trying to get around all the boxes is near on impossible due to time constraints, logistics and the cost -  to get round all the boxes, you can do quite a few miles across some quite rugged terrain, and it's all funded by Paul himself, so there could be owls that we know nothing about.
Paul was out checking the boxes 3 or 4 weeks ago and we had a total of 21 chicks over 8 boxes,so on Saturday 2nd July, Paul had arranged for Mick Townsend, our ringing mentor, to meet up and go and ring all 21 chicks.  Mick had been on holiday so we had at to wait on his return before we could do anything about ringing the chicks, so with this in mind  we knew that some of the chicks were going to be quite big or even be out of the box

                                                Barn Owl chick waiting his turn to be ringed

We started at our first site around 1pm.  I'm always excited when we start ringing the chicks - not only does it make you feel good that its all been worthwhile after all the hard work that Paul and I do, putting up the boxes - normally when its freezing cold or raining - but its just brilliant to have a Barn Owl chick in your hand and be putting a ring on it.  Paul and I do most of the ringing, watched over by Mick to make sure we doing what we are supposed to be doing and he also takes all the information which is required, ready for the BTO report.  Mick Townsend, who is a very experienced ringer, and as rung birds all over the world, can be found every weekend at Stamford Reservoir where he as been ringing birds for more years there than you would like to mention. We finally finished at our last site some five and half hours later with all the chicks ringed. A good days work, I feel!

                                                       Paul with 3 large chicks

                                               Mick and Paul at another site with 3 chicks

                      Yours truly with a pair of chicks ready to go back into the box having been ringed

As always, thanks for stopping by and any comments are welcome.
The following day my wife and I went to the Farne Isles for a few days, so when I sort through the images I will do post on the birds we encountered there too.

Migrants at Brascote GP

Following my hip replacement on the 23rd April, getting out birding has obviously had to be put on the back burner, as getting around my patch means climbing over a style which is a no-no for up to 6 weeks. It has been great though watching the Blue and Great Tits, busily going backwards and forwards to the nest boxes in the garden, and the Blackbird churning out all the soil in the garden pots! The second weekend I was home, 7 of May, I saw my first 4 Swifts of the year over the garden, and my wife took me to Cropston Resevoir when the Arctic Terns were on the move - but sadly none came through there that day. Today found me sitting here, feeling a bit bored and cooped up, when I remembered that on the Friday the 22nd of April, Pete and I went for my last sortie over Brascote Pits for a while, and I took a few images; it was a bit overcast, but fine for a late afternoon/evening walk. There were lots of hirundine over the front pit, and the first House Martins there for the year. Walking around the pits, migrants were evident all around, with singing Willow Warblers and Chiffchaffs in the sallows and also the Lesser Whitethroat was still there from the weekend before, and still singing well - fingers crossed for them to breed on the patch! The Oystercatchers flew over our heads and landed on the sallows' pool. We were surprised to see when we got up there that they had landed on the old gantry! All in all, a nice little walk giving 35 species - and it was nice to see a few spring migrants too

                                                                    Chiffchaff

                                                                   Oystercatcher

                                                                      Swallow

                                                                 Willow Warbler

Lesser Whitethroat (heavily cropped)

Well that's killed a couple of hours! - just got to wait now till I can get over that style and get back to a bit of patch birding! I will be getting out and about in the next week or two, but only where I can walk safely with my crutches. I did miss a patch tick last Sunday, when Pete found a Grey Plover on the old settling pool (Garganey pool) - not only a good patch tick, but a good Leicestershire bird. In fact, there were 4 good mates of mine doing a Leicestershire bird race, and I passed the news on to them -the the Plover broke the record, giving them a day count of 113 (though they did go on to grab 2 more species and end up with 115)  Well done lads - great total!

As always thanks for stopping by and I welcome any comments.

Common Tern rafts Launched

Well, after many man hours of work on the Tern rafts, Wednesday morning was the day we were going to launch two of the four rafts which Andy Smith and I had made, onto Thornton Reservoir. With the the help of Jim Graham, Ben Croxtall, Russel Parry, Roger West and Graham Middleton - the latter of whom allows us to use his farm to make the rafts on, and who also provided the materials for the rafts' anchors, the gravel for the rafts' floors and the transport from the farm to the reservoir, a sincere thank-you from LROS - and hopefully the Terns too! The weather was perfect - the sun was shining, and no wind - ideal for the rafts to be launched; from start to finish, both rafts were in position after only a couple of hours  -as they say' many hands make light work' so a big thank-you also to all the volunteers who helped along the way.

 The above image is the first raft loaded on Grahams trailer ready for the journey to the reservoir

 All the lads after lifting it from the trailer slowly and lowering it down in to the reservoir. I'm now hoping it floats

 Ben looking the part in his waders with the first raft now in the water, and waiting for the gravel to be loaded on to the rafts' floor

 Russel, Andy and Roger towing the first raft out out into position - Russel picking the short straw,having to do the rowing

 This is what the rafts are anchored down with - a car tyre filled with concrete, with a chain concreted in, then a rope between the raft and the chain. We use two - one at either end of the raft

 The first raft in position which was slightly listing as there was too much gravel at one end, but it was soon rectified by just equaling out the gravel. You can see on the above image and below, there are some ridge tiles - these are used for shelters for the chicks

 The second one in position, all anchored down. Now both rafts are just waiting for their tenants - so fingers crossed, soon there will be breeding Common Terns on Thornton Reservoir!  I will of course keep you all informed as to how the rafts are doing; as for the other two rafts we made, it is yet undecided where they will be sited
As always thanks for stopping by and any comments are most welcomed.

An unexpected find....

Late afternoon on Monday the 11th I was going out to check some owl boxes with my buddy Paul Riddle; Paul was checking a couple of boxes on one of our sites in South Leicestershire, when he was called on his phone by another land owner in the same area, saying he had a strange bird in a ploughed field, which he thought was a Crane, so Paul headed over and went with the land owner to investigate; on seeing the bird, Paul called me and said he was looking at a White Stork! For a minute, I thought he was joking, but he sounded quite serious so I headed over to where he was, and it wasn't long before we both stood there looking at the White Stork. There were no rings on it, and it looked fully winged - it looked to be the real deal - it ws just like the loads of White Stork I've seen in Spain!  The land owner said we could take our vehicle into the field, and as the bird was taking no notice of the tractor and harrowing machine, we did just that. The bird was  busily feeding, but getting closer to us all the while; we just sat there in the vehicle watching it, and eventually got some decent images. After probably an hour or so, the bird flew off high to the west

                                                      Feeding on worms

                                              Looking for its' next morsel

Paul and I have spent hundreds of hours making and erecting boxes and checking them year in year out, and we see loads of different birds and wild life - but to see a White Stork on one of our estates was just amazing! Just goes to show what birds are out there in the middle of nowhere! Many thanks to land owner who brought it to our attention, as he really could have said nothing about it. Sadly though, he did not want hoards of people on his land - even with Pauls' powers of persuasion - he was not going to budge on the matter -it wasn't for the want of us trying, but in the end,you have to respect the estate owner's wishes, which is why we were unable to put the news out for other birders.
As always thanks stopping by

Kingfishers and Wagtails

Just a short post today - a couple of weeks ago, my mate Paul Riddle and I were going out to check  a few of our Barn and Little Owl boxes, but before we started, we grabbed our customary sausage and tomato cobs,  and went to see if the Kingfishers were showing at Pauls' site; its the same site we were at a few posts ago. On the slow drive to the Kingfishers, we noticed the Green Sandpiper was still frequenting its usual haunt and also a pair of Grey Wagtails had taken up residence, but on this visit there was no sign of the Water Rail

                                                                   Green Sandpiper

                                                                 Grey Wagtail

Whilst Paul and I sat there by the river enjoying our breakfast, the male Kingfisher landed on one of his favourite perches; he just sat there preening and having a bit of a stretch now and then. Paul then heard another Kingfisher and our male bird's posture totally changed - something I've never seen before - making itself look a lot bigger, as you can see in the last image. It chased the intruder off, before coming back to the perch. I could have stayed watching it all day, but the owl boxes don't check themselves, so Paul and I left the Kingfishers to their business, and we went and did a bit of work on the boxes

                                                          Kingfisher having a stretch

                                                             looking for his breakfast

I'm bigger than you think!

As I said, just a short post for today. Thanks for stopping by

Antarctic Cruise the last part

Leaving the Falkland Islands behind us, we were heading for our last port of call which would be Montevideo in Uruguay This would mean another two days at sea, but those two days were quite productive -  Soft-plumaged Petrel and Antlantic Petrel were noted.  Humpback Whales were seen along with two other cetaceans  which Sue found -both being quite rare! Unfortunately they were both in the same area, and I only got an image of one of them -the Long-finned Pilot Whale (I think), the other was Southern Right Whale Dolphin (seeing one of these is a 'red letter' day apparently!) and it's another one that Sue can grip me off about. It was the last we saw of the Wandering Albatross as we traveled further north but still lots of Black-browed, though,  and we started to see some Sooty Shearwaters too It was a good two days spent at sea, and on the 27th we would wake up in Montevideo

                                                               Hump Back Whale

                                                               Hump Back Whale

                                                            Long-finned Pilot Whale

                                                             Wandering Albatross

In Montevideo we had arranged to meet up with a guide we had found on birdingpal;  his name was Lionel, an Australian now living in Uruguay with his wife Silvia, who was also a very good birder. We spent about four hours with them at a little wetland site, and even had a picnic by the river. Birds were a bit sparse but we managed to see Bare-faced Ibis, Rufous-sided Crake, Wren-like Rushbird Spectacled Tyrant and Hooded Siskin, plus a lot we had seen already in Buenos Aires - but all the same, it was  a great few hours. They then took us for a quick guided tour around the city, before dropping us back at the port where we had a little look around the market before we went back to the ship for our final night.

                                                             Rufous-sided Crake

                                                              Wren-like Rushbird

                                                                    Rufous Hornero

                                                                 The Hornero's Nest

Whilst waiting for the ship to depart back to Buenos Aries my last lifer was noted - a White-necked Heron put in an appearance on one of the board walks

White-necked Heron

I thought this was an interesting sign - not one you see every day whilst out birding!! It is, of course from the Falklands - and the mines are still there, being cleared by specialist teams 

The image below is of the Southern Right Whale Dolphins we were lucky enough to see.

This smashing image was taken by Mark Hefter (New York)

This cruise was a trip of a lifetime, and if you are lucky enough to get the chance to go to Antarctica,  I would definitely recommend you take it!!

Hope you've enjoyed reading about our adventures, and as always, thanks for stopping by.