Abbey Meadows

Abbey Meadows

Thursday 13 November 2008

Scarce birds




Dull and raining on my first day off for a while. There were 34 Waxwings at Morrisons car park in Morpeth this afternoon. I parked the car a few feet from a bright Rowan tree expecting the Waxwings to fly into it to feed. As it was mild they were flying up in the air catching insects. After taking half a dozen shots my battery went dead in my camera. As expected a few minutes later the flock descended onto the Rowan tree. I called into the local ponds and despite the high water levels there was a lot of wildfowl about. At Bothal and Longhirst flash good flocks of Teal and Wigeon. A bit of wife swapping at Bothal with a female Pochard and a male Tufted duck in one corner of the pond and a male Pochard with a female Tufted at the opposite corner.


At Linton pond the gulls from the tip were flying into the main pond to bathe. There were hundreds of Herring and Great black backs and among them was a third winter Iceland gull flew in bathed briefly then flew off. I believe it was a third winter with grey back and scapulars, white tail and wing tips with just a few flecks of brown on the neck and back. Among the hundreds of Canada geese was a Bean Goose (fabalis). Both these birds could have been photographed...dammit! A Grey lag goose had an orange neck ring with the letters AJJ. A canny afternoon's local birding. Above the Morrisons supermarket Waxwings before my camera packed in.

5 comments:

Stewart said...

Not a bad day at all. I might call in to see that Bean Goose. I bet its the one that has been around the county for years ( Branton Pits, Newton Pool, Linton etc).

foggy said...

bean goose eh ive not seen one of them and iceland gull will have to get up there.
well done bro but no pictures i used to have the same problem always carry spare batteries!!

Kingsdowner said...

Please send the waxwings down south - we haven't had an eruption for years, and I've never seen them.

abbey meadows said...

Thanks all. I believe the Bean goose is the northumbrian resident. It's probably been on every pool in the county by now. It seems to like the company of the Canadas. The way those Waxwings are guzzling up those berries it won't take them long to reach Kent.

Mary said...

34 waxwings! Wow! I seldom see one and only have one or two phtos of them.