Targeted Surveys

Couple of Tawnies
Friday & Saturday

Yes, great to get a great start with this one.
Marsh Tit pair pinned - one of the few times we locate them by sight than by sound 🎯👍🏻

Not many times you look at a Dippers & can see an egg !
Thought it had been visited prior to our arrival….
Think she’s knocked it out of cup on leaving?? she was already off duty
🧐

A slow start for our local Dippers
A dozen nests inspected but only 2 full clutches so far.

Yaffle nest tree

We’ve seen a huge decline in Green Woodpecker in recent years
It was great to hear regular Yaffling yesterday & see a male making an early start on this years home in a declining Ash.

Couple more active Kingfisher tunnels this morning b4 the rain
#NEBirding

Kingfisher cleaning out last years chamber after a new excavation collapsed
S1

9/3/26
Added a few more
Lambton & Leamside

Okay then.
Open a new social media account
Download loads of photos off someone who has you blocked & use those instead 🤓
Follow more handy social media tips & hints. 😆
Just go through the back catalogue, there’s so many images nobody will remember yours from 2 year back 😄👍🏻

Barely out of earshot of Songies atm
These are one observers singing Song Thrush so far this year

I wonder what the max population density works out at for these in the uk ? 🧐

Some are singing virtually on top of each other

Last year dry breeding season has seemingly done them no harm 🧐

Don’t be daft
Keep on ✍️

Also, static subjects can be togged 📸 by digi-scoping / binning 😇

We’ve managed to digi-bin Leo in the dark bins & phone in each hand & a torch 🔦 in the gob 😁

Looks like the Crossbills are finally getting on with it
Last few years we’ve had NewYear nests, but no real signs till recently
Pic 1 this weekend
Others from our recent studies
#NEBirding

Well done that dog 😄

Quite reckless
LTTit domes are now being lined.
SThrush will be laying eggs this week 😕
They’ve had 6-7 months to get this done

Examples of species mapped “as we go”.

Willow Tit 2025
Spotted Fly 2025
Song Thrush 2026 (local edit)
Tree Spuggie 2025/26 (ongoing).

Others mapped in detail (over decades) include LeOwl Dipper Woodcock WaterRail Yellowhammer JackSnipe GreyWag etc

A Bird Atlas is a totally outdated concept.

Dippers on a go slow here this season
& an abandonment due to tunnel roof collapsing…
Last year we had eggs being laid now
& February clutches in recent years

1 seen by several experienced raptor enthusiasts in west Durham this January.

(eBird is set up terribly for those of us in VC66 - we have our history recording area split into “Stockton” 😳 & also the dreadful “Tyne & Wear” which only 1 or 2 birders have any affinity with.)

Why don’t they map the vast amounts of information they receive as they go ?

Where are the BTO’s up to date species range maps ?

We’ve advanced how we can communicate & share information yet still choose to produce the same product as 50+ years ago 🧐

After 3 cloudless days, it’s rained all night & still is…
This will be topping up the local paddy fields
10 Jacks in a quick check last night - totally overshadowed by the other 2 cryptic waders displaying !

Incredible light pollution (image c19:45) - wonder what effect this has on birds ? 🧐

Snipe & Woodcock are very scarce / barely even annual breeders across the whole of the City of Sunderland (53 sq miles)

This evening we’ve had both drumming AND roding !

Whether these are excitable migrants or not remains to be seen
& a challenge we will relish 🎯

Moon full
2 sets of Owls busy

also bonus Scolopax Roding in an irregular peripheral territory

Image shows ruffled throat feathers on a ‘singing’ male Leo
🦉

El mirlo acuático o white-throated dipper camina por ríos de montaña con corrientes intensas. Este paseriforme casi semiacuático se separó hace ~20 millones de años y hoy existen 5 especies. Más de 6,000 paseriformes nunca ocuparon ese nicho. Selección natural y evolución convergente en acción.

👍🏻You only need to look at what’s happened to the National population assessment to see how little we all know.
It was only in recent years that it was confirmed that the population was higher than the RBBP threshold of 2.5K
(We reckon could be c2,200 pairs in VC66 looked closely since 1990’s).

We still have increases in recent years into new (over stocked amenity / community plantations ) here in several different (& unconnected) Hectads

I would to see what Broughton is saying unfortunately we are Blocked (he incorrectly suggested we were over counting- prior to removal from RBBP List)🙄

Clip 2
(Missed the warbling vocals & chasing)
Birds noted in x5 monads this am. 🎯👍🏻
#Wilti26

Lots of #Wilti26 busying themselves this morning

Cool & breezy but plenty song & pairs contesting boundaries at East Rainton (Clip 1. Linear site - old wagonway scrub)
&
Chilton Moor (Clip 2. Woodland site - unmanaged amenity plantation c25 y/o)

Nice bit of habitat.

It’s interesting that we read the % figures for national losses, yet we can still go out & find new territories 🧐
Here’s a clip of 3 birds in whats likely to be a new (typical) breeding site.
Just a overgrown mature hedgerow & ditches in lowland farmland
#Wilti26

6km man flu walk 🥴

First day with multiple singing Chiffs
& 16Song Thrush also in fine voice.
First Frogspawn (average date)
New pairs of RNParas 😬 & Buzzards roosting side by side close to home.

February almost over
Is Winter finished with us ??

What Wilti needs is exactly the opposite to what we see from so many organisations 😕

Way too many giddy kippers making a living organising “Tidy Squads”

Truly exasperating
We wouldn’t advocate non intervention in all scenarios, but the best places are all where the volunteers don’t go 🥴