"Hi, Have You Seen Much Today?"

Whilst others were away Spotting Sandpipers I went for an early morning wander around Newbiggin.  A flock of 22 Scoters, the normal Common and Sandwich Tern, plenty of Gulls, Gannets and Eiders were observed from the Sea Watching Point with lots of Redshanks, and Turnstones on the Breakwaters and quite a few Med Gulls and Terns on the beach on the South part of the bay

I then headed for a quick look around Arcot where a couple of Common Sandpipers and a Green Sandpiper were on some mud at the Western side of the pond.  There were also a flock of about 45+ Swallows just hanging around.

Moving on to Big Waters the first obvious thing was a flock of 19 Greylags flying over the Car Park heading in a Southerly direction.  I know there is only 15 in the picture but the other 4 were a few metres behind

Then I encountered my first Comma on Big Waters itself for the year, it was still only 8.30am but there were loads of Butterflies around mainly of the white variety.

It hung around just enough for this one snap but whilst walking back later on with Alan J we encountered another one in the same area and if you look at the second photo you can see the Commer shaped white mark on the underside of the wing which it allegedly gets its name from

Now, a little story...I was walking along the boardwalk and met someone walking out..."Have you seen anything?" says I, "Now't at all" says he, "No Water Rails around then?" says I, "Well there was 3 of them, some Reed Warblers and some Sedge Warblers, but apart from them absolutely nothing".  We then carried on walking our own ways thinking how awful it must be to come to this place and only see the birds he mentioned!!!!  Well I spent a couple of hours seeing only the aforementioned birds and about 30 or more species, had a chat with a few people, learnt a few things, saw my first Emerald Damselfly and Ruddy Darter of the year.

Unfortunately my Emerald pics didn't come out well (now thats unusual......) 

Then I caught sight of a flock of another red flying species as they streaked over Big Waters

So if you want to see only the things mentioned above, then remember 

YOU HAVEN'T SEEN NOWT

I then headed for Banks Pond where on stopping the car 2 Emperors flew over the road away from the pond, I will get a proper pic someday.  On the pond were loads of Damsels, a few 4 Spotted Chasers, Ruddy Darters, and some Common Darters.  

Then another flock of the "Red spad" came overhead again with a couple of them coming extremely close

Another CANNY day seeing Nowt.........