Bamburgh part one

 A family and friends get together last week took my wife and I up to Bamburgh for a few days. While everyone was doing their thing, I spent most of my time on the beach and rocks photographing the birds. Unfortunately, the Bonaparte’s Gull that was off Stag Rocks didn’t show while I was up there but it was found again when I had returned home. I took so many images over the three days we were there I have divided them into two parts.

Turnstone.

Not turning stones but seaweed.

I took more images of the Turnstone in flight than I did of any other bird.

I saw this Crow coming in to land on the beach with something in its beak so I took a photo. I didn’t realise what it was until I got the image up on the computer and found out it was a Frog.

I didn’t see many of these Eider or Cuddy Ducks. 

Arctic Tern.

There were three at Stag Rocks.

Rock Pipit.

Calling Pied Wagtail.

Oystercatcher on the rocks at Seahouses.

A couple of Stonechat were in the dunes.

I had a drive…

 …to South Shields the other day primarily to see the Snow Buntings that have been there for a while now. They did show a few times but were very flightily flying off if anyone on the pier got too close. A bird that wasn’t bothered at all about people was a very obliging Turnstone that was on the pier wall and posed for pictures. A pair of Eider Duck was also nice to see, as was a Pipit in the dunes. The sea was quite wild with massive white horses breaking near the shore and looked great through the long lens I had on the camera. 

Snow Bunting

Turnstone

Male Eider Duck

Diving Male Eider Duck

Female Eider Duck

Pipit

The sea was a bit choppy

Gull fighting the wind and waves

South Shields

A trip to South Shields for the Glaucous Gull yesterday, I managed to see it but unfortunately did not get any pictures. I also managed to get a brief glimpse of a Snow Bunting, of which I did get some (rubbish) pictures. The Fulmars on the cliffs were great to watch and I could have easily spent all day taking photos of them. The Little Owl was in its usual spot, which was nice, even the sun put in an appearance in the afternoon so overall a canny day out was had. Here are just a few of the images I got.

Fulmar

Little Owl

Snow Bunting

Turnstone

Eider with what to me looks like a crab

Sanderling. I love the way they run along the beach

Sanderling. It’s probably thinking to its self “I knew those ballet lessons would pay off”

Oystercatcher

Pied Wagtail. This one seems to have a lot of yellow on its head.