26th September: The Journey Up... Day 1:
And so, after meeting Bradders and Bob V in Colchester and collecting Peter Moore, fresh from Dorset at Jim Lawrence's Huntingdon pad, we headed north and
thankfully the quick re-identification of an in the hand flycatcher in Yorkshire precluded a
detour (but not Subway related indigestion) and the late afternoon was spent in Northumberland
with my first visit to Lindesfarne where two Yellow-browed Warblers obliged but a
creeping Locustella seen by locals eluded us.
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| Onto Lindesfarne |
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| The Snook |
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| The Snook |
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| The Snook - before the sun went in! |
A couple of Redwings dropped in
and a Pale-bellied Brent was with the Mute Swans on the way back to the
mainland. Before the sea fret came in there were many pristine Red Admirals and fat Bluebottles sunning themselves on the wall and pampas grass of the Snook including an huge blue green monster with an orange face that Phil Collins identified even from my poor photo as Cynomya mortuorum.
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| Red Admiral |
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| Red Admirals |
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| Bluebottle |
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| Field Grasshopper but I have never seen one this wholly green before |
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| Pirri-Piri Burr |
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| Pirri-Piri Burr- the only flower I found |
Having extricated ourselves from the Pirri-Piri Burr (A New Zealand escapee) we headed back
up the road where the wonderfully friendly golfers of Goswick welcomed us and
the delightfully obliging juvenile Long-tailed Skua while skeins of Pink-feet
‘wink-winked’ over the fields...
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| 'Gonna get your ball....' |
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| The Long-tailed Skua would go for regular flights the whole length of the golf course before returning to its favoured fairway! |
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| Pinkies - a sound of any autumn |
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| Someone turned the sun out... |
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| Long-tailed Skua |
A magical evening to get proceedings started
and capped off with a fine pub burger in Berwick-upon-Tweed and a couple of
pints of fine ale which probably assisted in the wrongness of the toilet roll dispenser in the rather spelndidly posh Youth Hostel in town!
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| This so discombobulated Bob that he dropped his phone down the loo... |
27th September: The Journey Up... Day 2:
After a traditional Golden Arches
Borders breakfast we made our way to St Abbs Head for a quick skirt around Mire
Loch.
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| St Abbs Head |
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| Mire
Loch |
The lochside trees were full of crests and Chiffies but although we could
not find the Bonelli's Warbler we did find four dinky, striped Yellow-broweds,
two Willow Warblers, Blackcaps and a Treecreeper. Robins ticked and four Brambling and a
party of Redpoll dropped in while Bullfinches tooted invisibly and they had
obviously been feeding on the Rowans whose berries
littered the ground.
To be honest it was the seriously irate local shepherdess
howling abuse at her disobedient hound that raised the most smiles. “Get back
here you useless bastard mutt!” was possibly the mildest phrase used and quite
audible at about half a mile!
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| Shepherdess (top right) before it all went very wrong for her - and her dog |
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| A fine Romeo! |
St Abbs and its rugged folded
cliffs was left behind and we continued north over the new Forth crossing which
is truly spectacular.
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| Bradders sat nav was having locational issues at this point |
We made for Kilminning near Crail where a field of
Skylarks, Meadow Pipits and Yellowhammers were buffeted in the wind and
offshore, Gannets careened by along with solitary Manx
Shearwater, Arctic Skua and Razorbill.
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| The sun popped out at Kilminning but the wind had got up... |
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| An the Isle of May in the distance... |
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| Yellowhammer |
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| Goldfinch hanging onto the Swedish Whitebeam |
The scrub was very quiet bar a couple of
Goldcrests and a goodly number of Goldfinches and Greenfinches. It was however
the very obliging, boisterous young Barred Warbler that plucked elderberries at
close range in the sunshine that instantly became the bird of the day.
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| Barred Warbler |
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| Barred Warbler |
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| Nice shevrons! |
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| A Common Darter - the last I would see for two weeks |
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| Some fine Puffballs - not sure of species yet |
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| And I could not leave out the tattie harvesters! |
The 'Hrossey' to Shetland in Aberdeen beckoned and
although the weather looked a little interesting for the first couple of days,
the wind direction was superb so fingers were crossed...
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| A murky Aberdeen |
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