Sabine's Gull

failed to get up early this morning and it looked like we had missed the northward moving adult Sabine's Gull that had passed Chapel and Huttoft earlier - the latter place at 08:15 so while scanning south at 10:05 it was a real surprise to see an adult Sabine's coming up the tide edge; or so I thought because having grabbed the camera when I looked back all I could see were two Sandwich Terns on the beach! then it reappeared hanging over the terns and I set off in the rain and wind running the 1000m or so down the beach - it landed but not for very long before lifting up and being caught by the wind it drifted out towards the sea -- shame it didn't linger longer and the light wasn't better but small mercies -- otherwise a steady 7 hours with 6 juvenile Long-tailed Skuas, 56 Arctics but only 4 Bonxies, a couple of Black Terns, Little Gull, 4 juvenile Arctic Terns, one Sooty north and 4 Curlew Sandpipers north the best of a bevy of waders mostly Red Knot and Dunlin.

First view below as it came onto the beach

juvenile Common Buzzard

stunning fresh juv

beach waders

a juvenile Ringed Plover and 17 juvenile Sanderling enlivened a pretty steady Lincs swatch yesterday

juvenile osprey

I had already given up for the day when I got a message from Andy, Osprey -- the first shot shows my first view as I arrived to see it head off south-west up the Wolds but 10 minutes later it came back for a few minutes before heading off south down the A15 - a pristine juvenile with no rings - hope it makes it to its wintering area

Spotted Flycatcher patch year tick

in recent years seem to be relying on an autumn passage Spotted Flycatcher as a patch year tick being unable to find any breeding birds locally- this one Thursday evening

Pied Flycatchers - bird of the month

forget all the rarer birds I didn't find the numbers of Pied Flycatchers were nice to see

juvenile Hobby

tied up with other birds this year not had chance to find my usual Hobbies and this pair were quite close to a nest I first found in 2003! Th two young only fledged four days ago making it quite a late nest and the nest was in a large beech my first such nest but the Hobby monograph quotes up to 17% of nests in beech in the Midlands which maybe just reflects the lack of hedgerow beech tree sin North Lincs

a Lincolnshire landmark

Pelham's Pillar visible from many parts of North Lincolnshire is closed to the public and inaccessible but I was fortunate to climb to the top of the tower in the 1960's when my father was a friend of the local gamekeeper; built between 1840 and 1849 it was built to mark the planting of 12.5 million trees in what are now the woods that stretch from the Pillar to Brocklesby; The Portland stone of which it is constructed was shipped to the Humber and then ferried by horse and cart to the site.

coastal terns and Kitts

a bit cool and breezy on Friday at the sea but still plenty of Sandwich Terns and a few Common, a couple of juvenile Arctic and a couple of Kittiwakes north -- seem to be a lot of decent sized fish out there judging from what birds are carrying but few juvenile Sandwich amongst the throngs as yet -- one Arctic Skua seems to be indicative of the vast reduction in the number of this once regular blogger on the Lincs coast