Friday 12 April 2013

Northumberland: Low Newton.

I am down in Northumberland again, based at my dad's just a few miles from Alnwick. On the way down I stopped at Broxden services for something to eat and saw my first Lesser Black-backed Gulls of the year. First port of call when I am down here is Low Newton, there is just something about the place that I like and it's only just around the corner. The weather wasn't looking too great but it was dry in the morning so I decided to give it a go.

On arriving at the car park the first thing I noticed was plenty of Goldfinch as well as the usual wood pigeons and I made my way down into the village and round to Stringer's scrapes first. Plenty of Teal about plus 4 fairly noisy Greylag geese. Wasn't else of note apart from 2 Herring Gull and a nice looking male Shoveler.



It didn't really feel much different from when I was last here back in December, dull, wet and cold and there wasn't much bird activity in the dunes apart from a Robin, a Linnet singing it's heart out, a few Dunnocks and a Meadow Pipit. At Newton pool a few more Greylags, a pair of Goldeneye and also two Moorhen right infront of the hide.

I carried on through the dunes not seeing much before coming down on the beach heading back towards the village. It wasn't until I was almost all the way back to the start of the beach that I started to see some more interesting birds. Quite a few Redshank about and small groups of Eider offshore. A bit further out were 16 Common Scoter and the usual Gulls and Cormorants present. As I was coming to the end of the beach I could see quite a lot of activity in amongst the rocks and seaweed. Firstly there were quite a few Bar-tailed Godwits on the beach but there was quite a bit activity in the seaweed itself and on closer inspection it was a a group of Turnstone. But some of these Turnstone looked a bit different and mixed in amongst them were a handful of Purple Sandpipers.

Bar-tailed Godwits + Oystercatchers
Turnstone + Purple Sandpipers - can be easily missed!

Plenty of Jackdaws, some with interesting degrees of a pale collar showing, Rock Pipits and a couple White Wagtails on the strandline but by now it was chucking it down with rain as I headed back to the car. I did plan to visit a couple more places in the afternoon but the weather didn't improve. That's me on 99 for the year now, the delayed Spring not helping things but hopefully back out tomorrow, the weather forecast looks better.

Year List Additions:
96. Lesser Black-backed Gull
97. Shoveler
98. Moorhen
99. Purple Sandpiper

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