Booted off

News of the Booted Warbler at Hadston on Saturday came too late for me - experimenting with DIY had reached a point of no return...

Sunday commenced with another rapid response trip to West Hartford to collect the little stint that had dropped into say hello to the seemingly resident sanderling. Another great Cramlington year-tick.

Little Stint and Sanderling - an unlikely duo at West Hartford - picture through the scope...

With the biggy (smally?) in the bag, I headed up the coast - negative news already from Hadston, so I called into East Chevington for a decent couple of hours. The spotted crake resides, and at time has forays out into the open - chasing off snipe, redshank and teal while I was there.

A black tern dropped in and fed actively over the northern section of the north pool, while waders were complimented with spotted redshank and ruff.

Spot Shank - again through the scope

With the sun breaking through I headed to Hadston Carrs - no sign of the booted warbler, and a quick look to sea provided manx shearwater, gannet, arctic skua and hods of kittiwake.

Cresswell had greenshank, 2 spotted redshank, avocet and a ruff. Otherwise quiet.

Cresswell ~ waders, an albino and a cuckoo

A couple of hours at Cresswell this morning was very productive, with little stint, ruff, water rail, spoonbill, curlew sandpiper, whimbrel, long-tailed duck, yellow wagtail, an albino barn swallow (amazing - flew south over pool), and greenshank noted.

A great display from a couple of stoats was set to be the highlight until the very last moments - when a cracking barn owl was watched hunting over the dunes and an amazingly obliging juv cuckoo fed along the entrance track!

A bit heat-hazed...

Very productive stint on the patch

By national standards a pager message of 4 little stint at West Hartford would be largely ignored. However, on a patch scale, 4 little stint at West Hartford (or anywhere in Cramlington for that matter) is MEGA!

Steve and Phil had sent a text not long after three to advise of their presence - so after a quick assembly of camera and bins I was off, and soon was enjoying my second record of little stint in Cramlington (the last being a single bird in Spring 2004, also at WH).

Flighty and keeping to the west edge of the promising looking pool the stints were a great sight. Images here are with the 500mm & 2.0 extender - so records at best!

"Flighty" is probably a good link to the next species that was on offer. After hearing them in Spring 2010, the next species encountered was very much unexpected. In fact it surpassed the stints!

Remarkably we had  a single quail, not once, but twice (or thrice if you're Steve and Phil)... in flight, calling.

What next?!

Lame Stint!

Monday afternoons plans to wash the car were shattered when the pager announced at 14.27  that there was an interesting stint sp. not to far down the road at Lamesley - in fact it was being put out that the aforementioned bird was a possible long-toed stint.... So, with a rinsed car that dried very streaky, I made my way south on the A1. Passing Gatesheads' Metro Centre news was broadcast that the bird was still present, but was thought to be a probable little stint...

A few were gathered at the site and it was clear that the bird was interesting - loosely associating with little ringed plover, this apparent pale legged bird has a nice white supercilium and rufous looking cap. In flight it was noted by others that the toes did not seem to project, but no one realy was committed to making a judgement!

I put a couple of images on Birdforum last night (note that the record shot was taken with both 1.4 and 2.0 convertors stacked, so pretty poor!!) and some video also appeared on Youtube... and not too long later opinion seemed to settle on little stint. Just shows, stint id' isn't too easy... Anyone remember the 1989 bird at Saltholme??? (think it turned out to be a presumed hybrid... pec sand * dunlin if I remember correct?)

Onwards....