Two Days in Cleveland

- or a ride on the birding rollercoaster!

Friday

There was, so it was told on the old pager thing, a Baird's sandpiper at Hartlepool, at Newburn Bridge to be precise. I like Newburn Bridge because at high tide the waders can be excitingly close to you. They were. But no sign of the target bird. In fact there was no sign all day.

Not to worry, there'll be other things to see. Like gulls for instance. I spotted this bird on the rocks.

Mediterranean Gull I seem to have a thing about Mediterranean Gulls. I kept an eye on this one. But there were other gulls too. Like this smart black-headed gull.

Black-headed Gull Or herring gulls.

Herring Gull Herring Gull My eye was drawn back to the medgull.

Mediterranean Gull Mediterranean Gull At low tide there were few waders.

Oystercatcher After a while I drove up to Saltholme - there's usually something of interest at the Phil Stead hide. Here's what I saw... [= ellipsis: only 3 dots allowed, you know!]

This magpie has just been wading in the pool. He starts to shake the water droplets off!

Magpie And even more droplets fly!

Magpie Now for a godwit-fest. Over 20 godwits were present and there were a few altercations. Light was poor so photos not top quality but they convey the situation well, I think.

Black-tailed Godwit Godwit 1: Have you seen my leaning over trick?

                                                                          Godwit 2: Well, I bet you can't do the splits like this!

Black-tailed Godwit How about a fight, then?

Black-tailed Godwit Black-tailed Godwit Black-tailed Godwit Black-tailed Godwit I spotted a new species of godwit: the long-necked godwit!

Black-tailed Godwit A lapwing came very close. With antennae like those he must get very good reception!!

Lapwing Unless you get your wires crossed!

Lapwing

There were snipe...

Snipe ...and even greenshanks. Just in case anyone thought they'd seen the back of them. Trouble is, I can't resist photographing them!

Greenshank Greenshank Last picture of the day shows a godwit in calmer mode. Black-tailed by the way.

Black-tailed Godwit

Saturday

Back to Newburn Bridge bright and early to catch the wader roost at high tide. With equally high hopes of a Baird's sandpiper.

A turnstone was on the concrete ramp behind me.

Turnstone The roost of sanderlings produced a very black and white image, so I changed it to black & white to see how it looked!

Sanderlings There was for several hours no sign of the Baird's sandpiper. Excitement spread among the asembled birders when someone spotted something different.

'There it is!' went the shout.

Sanderling & Dunlin Pretty little bird. Unfortunately it's a dunlin. Always eliminate the most likely first. One birder had obviously lost his bottle.

Dunlin To compensate for our disappointment someone piped up: 'Yellow-legged gull. On the rocks!'

Attention switched to this bird.

Lesser Black-backed Gull Yes, it's a lesser black-backed gull. Double dipping on the birding rollercoaster!!

I fled to Saltholme again for something different, I hoped.

Weasel They do a good line in weasels at Saltholme. I've seen a few over the years.

Weasel I bet those teeth can really hurt!

There were birds too. Including the surprise of the week! I nearly had to settle for one of my cuckoo type record shots of this bird until, happily, it decided to come over my way...

Pectoral Sandpiper What is it? It's a pec. Pectoral sandpiper. Bit camera shy at first.

Pectoral Sandpiper Pectoral Sandpiper Pectoral band showing nicely! Dead technical.

Pectoral Sandpiper Pectoral Sandpiper To end the day I went back to Newburn Bridge. Just in case. Stupid really as the tide was now low. Still, one bird was waiting for me. I don't mean this group of sandwich terns.

Sandwich Terns Or this mixed group: sanderlings, oystercatcher, black-headed gulls and sandwich terns.

Sandwich Terns & friends! As you can see, the beach at Newburn Bridge at low tide is quite black with sea-coal dust. In sunlight and shade it can look very different. Wet it can look sky blue. In shade it can look jet black. Like this - with my favourite gull.

Mediterranean Gull I waited a long time, camera settings all set for flight shots using the Canon 'ring of fire' focus points. Eventually something put the few other gulls up. The med followed suit and I was ready. So just for me: Mediterranean gull in flight.

Mediterranean Gull Mediterranean Gull Shadow on the sand below.

Mediterranean Gull Mediterranean Gull It's as if he's trying to shake off his shadow.

Mediterranean Gull Farewell larus melanocephalus - which, just to confuse us all means black-headed gull!! To make matters even dafter, black-headed gull has the latin name larus ridibundus which means laughing gull. I wonder what the latin name of laughing gull means?

Editor: this must stop now!