Black Grouse

Myself and Tom were at Langdon Beck for first light in order to try to see the Black Grouse lek. We’d stayed overnight at Scotch Corner and were in place within the first hour of dawn. Unfortunately, so was thick fog!

However, after driving up and down the road, we eventually stumbled upon a male and then shortly after, a female. Though the views were close, and it was a new bird for Tom, we had really come to see the lek, and fortunately, during a short break in the fog, I eventually found 16 males displaying. The views at first were poor, as although not too distant, the fog was still thick (the reason we had driven past the birds whilst scanning the road.) However the fog cleared and we watched the birds from the car for well over an hour. Also around were the usual upland breeding birds like Meadow Pipit, Curlew, Snipe, Lapwing, Redshank and so on, all in a very evocative setting.

Black Grouse by Tom

Then our luck ran out! We then continued on to the second half of our day trip, to Seahouses where we were to catch the boat to the Farne Islands. Upon arrival and seeing the huge swell and crashing waves, it was obvious that no boats were to be sailing. We’d driven two hours further north to get there and were rather despondent. We sat and watched the sea for a while, noting Eider (about thirty, and the first ever good views for Tom), Ringed Plover, several Gannets, Turnstones, and Sandwich Terns,  as well as a Whimbrel heading North,

As there had been much talk of an amazing east-coast fall predicted for the day, we decided to try and make the most of it by birding somewhere on the east coast and heading south whilst waiting for news from somewhere like Filey or Spurn. We therefore spent about an hour around Druidge and Creswell Bay, but it was virtually devoid of passerines, though we did manage to find a Wood Sandpiper and several Wall Browns were on the wing. We continued south, but the fall did not really materialise and so did not stop off anywhere else.