Early and Late

I hadn’t had a proper look around all of West Hartford in a few weeks for one reason or another so I gave it a few hours on Saturday morning.


A Painted Lady and Speckled Wood Butterfly were making the most of the sunshine on the edge of Hartford Wood. Whilst walking towards the overgrown field behind the sub station I flushed a very late Grasshopper Warbler, which landed in a small bush providing excellent views. A vocal Jay was calling as I walked to the pools and a Short Eared Owl was hunting over the back fields.

On Sunday morning I heard a Greenshank fly north over my house just before I was leaving to meet SH and DMcK. We stopped at West Hartford first and on the flash pools in the field east of the entrance plantation there were 2 Redshank, 1 Green Sandpiper and a Greenshank.

Next we checked Cambois for migrants. 6 Blackcap, 8 Chiffchaff (including a few singing birds) and a Lesser Whitethroat were the only migrants we could find along the old railway line.

Yesterday I was at Seaton Sluice for 9:00 ready to check for migrants. As soon as I crossed the bridge to Rocky Island a few Goldcrest flew down the sluice and landed in the bushes at the harbour mouth. I spent a few hours searching Rocky Island and the harbour and managed to find: 4 Goldcrest, 6 Song Thrush, 4 Robin, 5 Wheatear, 1 Spotted Flycatcher, 2 Redstart and a Common Sandpiper in the harbour.

I met Cain at Seaton Sluice and form there we moved onto St.Mary’s. With a much bigger area to cover we managed to find: 4 Redstart, 2 Spotted Flycatcher, 2 Pied Flycatcher, 1 Reed Warbler, 1 Yellow Browed Warbler (one of 4 around), 5 Brambling and a Swift.

We would have given it longer if the weather wasn’t so bad. Most of the birds were taking shelter in the gut so we headed off to Tynemouth.

Although happy with what we had seen at St,Mary’s it was still annoying to have missed an Osprey which flew overhead!

Tynemouth was much quieter with only a few Redstart seen. Our last stop was Blyth Links Cemetery where 5 Redstart (including a stunning male) were grave hopping along with a White Wagtail.