Boulmer arrival till June - a long first post.

Most of the reasons for not restarting a blog tracking my birding, mostly now at Boulmer, ended up being either laziness, or the fact I couldn't think of a non-cringey name for it that wasn't Boulmer Birding or similar (I still haven't) - nice one Boulmer Birder for getting in there early. 

I arrived at Boulmer around the middle of April, having spent the last month at home doing birding from mostly my bedroom. I love vismig and my room offers decent views of 2 good valleys, and I'd had some highlights - I was very ready however to head up to my new patch and see what the hourly walks there had to offer.

My first few trundles down to the coast were encouraging, with good numbers of Wheatear, White Wagtails and the odd Yellow Wagtail with an expected supporting cast of seabirds. My first decent bird came in the form of an adult Black Tern flying N on the morning of the 25th, and would prove to be the first of a good number I've had this year. Other Tern sp were soon added, and before long the full suite of regular British breeders were on the patch list - Common, Arctic, Roseate, Little, Black and Sandwich - that'll be all for the Terns I thought (wrong!).

May was relatively quiet all told - notable additions whilst I worked out how Boulmer ticked included Avocet and LRP (both 2nd site records), Hobby, Whinchat, Med Gull, G N Diver, Osprey, Raven and the first Manxies and Arctic Skuas. Ben found a Quail at Seaton Point, which was probably joined by another and stayed for a few weeks, and a Ruddy Shelduck stopped by the Steel, but it was poor in terms of migrants, as reflected across most of the east coast.

I was away the weekend of the June 6th when Ben pulled out a singing, but brief Blyth's Reed Warbler at Seaton Point, but the 15th finally brought some action when I picked up 5 Spoonbill (1st confirmed site record I believe) heading low SW over the same location, being tracked as far south as SMI that day.

After the Spoonbills, there was a little purple patch - I found a Wood Warbler alongside a Spot Fly on a murky morning of easterlies on the 16th (slightly outdone by the Asian Desert Warbler present on Holy Island which I later twitched), and then during a Swift counting session at Seaton Point on the 21st, a flava landed on the beach calling. The call didn't set any alarm bells ringing, but upon locating it, it was obviously something interesting: a very grey head with lemon yellow underparts and greenish-grey mantle. On first, rather distant views in bins I thought it was a male Grey-headed, but getting the scope onto it I could see it was a female type, so I attempted to rattle off a few shots knowing it was going to be tricky to nail.

I normally find I can get a decent record shot in most circumstances, but with this bird I fell well below the standard and managed to focus on the wrong part of the beach. After a few more seconds of scope views I lost it completely, and then spent a futile 10 minutes trying to find it, only for what was presumably the wagtail to get up calling around 15 minutes later, never to be seen again. The 'thunbergi' necklace as I have seen it dubbed, along with general colouration and plumage features seen makes me happy that it was a female Grey-headed after a fair bit of research. Gary Woodburn had a very similar bird, possibly the same at Newton Pool 3 days later, him drawing the same conclusions.

Swift vismig had been building up in the increasing SWerlies, culminating in 2800 south in a few hours on the 28th, along with my 3rd Osprey of the year. By the end of June I had reached 127 for the Boulmer patch, and was starting to set a mental target to keep me going in the quieter periods of summer - 160 was achievable I reckoned by the end of September after doing some totting up. 

The first months, although ending with some good birds were largely quiet, due to I think a combination of a generally poor spring for migrants, the initial Covid restrictions, and me trying to figure out how to properly bird the Boulmer area. I've tried to keep this post manageable, and so have missed a few things off, but these were my highlights. A massive help in settling in somewhere new however were the locals and wider Northumberland birders, specifically Mark, Ben and Stewart. I'll cover the next few months up to present in 1, maybe 2 more big posts, and hope to start updating the blog regularly when I can get out and bird.