Quiet Weekend

Well hindsight is a wonderful thing, if we had left the Farne Islands trip to the weekend chances are the Bridled Tern would have gone but instead it frustrated us mid-week then not only stayed until the weekend but hung around for all visiting the Islands to connect with, not that I'm bitter! anyway you can't keep doing these expensive trips every 5 mins so I had a bit of low key weekend and just visited Blacktoft Sands this Saturday afternoon. Fairly quiet at the moment just the usual Marsh Harriers, five or six summer plumaged Spotted Redshanks, a few juv Bearded Reedlings flitting about the reeds, the Bitterns had been flying around that morning but not in the afternoon but the main point of interest was the Moths they had trapped the night before, two or three new ones for me including Poplar Hawkmoth.

Spotted Reds

got his eye on something

leaving empty handed

Eyed Hawkmoth

Poplar Hawkmoth

Buff-tip

female Ghost Moth

Barred Straw

Bright-line Brown-eye

Pebble Prominent

Heart and Dart

Double Square-spot

Dark Arches

Light Arches

Un-bridled disappointment

Me and Mark had been toying with the idea of a trip to the Farnes again this year and when the Bridled Tern returned to Inner Farne last weekend after a spending a few days on Fair Isle it made our minds up, having missed it last year due to one thing or another it was a good chance to get it back. Deciding not to risk leaving it till next weekend we both booked today off and headed up to Seahouses this morning, we booked the Boat then did a couple hours birding between Seahouses and Stag Rocks although there was nothing particularly of note. The Tern was reported at around 10am and it was an anxious wait for the Boat to go out at midday doing a tour of the Islands before landing on Inner Farne at 1-40pm by which time of course it had buggered off, just a small window of an hour on the Island and unfortunately it didn’t come back before we had to leave, it was not a total waste though because the other stuff was brilliant as usual, being bombarded by Arctic Terns and getting so close to the Auks etc, they are super Islands and well worth a visit. On the way home we got a belated report at around 6pm that the Bridled Tern had returned at 3-45pm why it took so long for the news to get out is a mystery, but as Mark said there seems to be a distinct lack of updates on it this year.

Inner Farne

approaching by boat

well we got a Bridled Guillemot

differing light in the shade of the rocks

Longstones Lighthouse

Brownsman Island

lots of Guillemots

but relatively few Razorbills

Sandwich with lunch

unusual perch

the Aw factor