Woodstock Wildlife Record

I enjoyed a family holiday to the Northumberland coast in mid-August which inevitably included a good amount of birding. It's an area of the country I've never been to before but I am well aware of its birding pedigree so couldn't pass the chance to make the most of it. Based in Shilbottle, a short distance from Alnwick, Alnmouth and Amble allowed me to explore the local area, mostly at the crack of dawn each day. As always for an inland birder, a visit to the coast is an exciting prospect. There was one stand-out bird for the week, so it makes sense to begin with that. I had checked the birding apps in the days prior to the holiday to get a feel for the best sites not too far from Shilbottle. East Chevington NR, south of Amble, looked a good place to start (it hosted a Grey-headed lapwing in the recent past). It has two lakes a short distance inland from the sea, one more viewable than the other with a few hides. I spent a couple of mornings there and got quite familiar wi...

July at Ardley began with an extraordinary count of 26 Little Ringed Plovers split between the ERF lagoon and the adjacent quarry. I had evenings of 15, 19 and 19, before JFT hit the crazy heights of 26! I still can't quite believe it, and it seems hard to explain. I think it can only be a perfect storm of the resident breeders and juveniles being joined by a glut of post-breeding birds passing through. But for that number to mass at an innocuous site like Ardley seems a freak event. Numbers quickly reduced again and gradually petered out by the end of the month. As it often seems to do, Ardley throws up some great records. Numbers of Green Sandpipers gradually increased to a maximum of 8 so far. The lagoon is looking perfect, so as always the hope is for some more good waders as the Autumn approaches. Other than Common Sandpipers and Lapwings, there hasn't been too much on the wader-front. A Curlew early in the month was a nice record and the first time I've ever seen one ...