Beautiful Geltsdale ... Tree Pipits delight with their magical display flight ...

This time my focus is on the actual valley of the River Gelt rather than the wider RSPB Geltsdale which takes in the Black Burn and the Pennine slopes overlooking the Tyne Gap ... true borderland country this wider area sees the Gelt before it drains into the Irthing and then into the Eden as it heads to the Solway ... not far away the Black Burn arises on the eastern slope of Cold Fell and finds its way into the North Sea ...

For me Tree Pipit has a special place among the summer migrants ... rather like the special quality that Wood Warbler has among the phylloscopus warblers ... from the rather muted and curtailed song that comes from the bird as it perches in the top of a hawthorn ... then the vertical take-off and parachute descent with those strong drawn out notes ... pure magic ...

The Gelt valley has gentler feel than some parts of the reserve and it is here that Tree Pipits have their stronghold within the reserve ... in Cumbria we are fortunate to have good populations ... in much of England this is a very scarce species ...

... and a declining one with a 46% decline in the 1995 - 2010 period ... this is thought to be related to problems either during migration or in their winter grounds in West Africa ...

Even within Cumbria some areas have seen steep declines in recent decades; the Eden Valley and West Cumbrian plain have suffered particularly ...

Within the county the abundance map shows the picture as it emerged from the 2007 - 2012 Atlas ...

Despite current concerns about population declines it seems from reading MacPherson ( 1892 Fauna of Lakeland ) that this species was rather thinly distributed even at that time ... he would of course be judging the abundance of wildlife by different standards from those we experience today ...

As I watched one bird performing both its sedentary song and its display flight, it returned time and again to the same hawthorn ...

... the complexity of the song is only appreciated by looking at the sonogram ...

... that initial muted jumble of notes that leads into the hauntingly beautiful drawn out notes that include both ascending and descending elements before finishing with another quieter jumble of sounds ...

Beautiful Geltsdale ... Whinchats in full song ...

With the first broods of Stonechats already fledged the parent birds were alarming all around ... and showy as ever ...

... while some on the higher ground were still feeding young in the nest ...

... and in those upland areas with no tree within several hundred meters a Willow Warbler sang and fed from the heather ...

... on Brown Fell a rocky hollow with scattered boulders amid the expanse of heather moorland provided nice habitat for Wheatears ...

... the Lapwings in a stony field on the flank of Byers Pike were alert as always to any passer by ...

... probably suffering from the dry baked ground ... but there are winners and losers from this unusually dry spring and the Common Gulls on the tarn have a safe nesting place  ... as long as the water levels remain stable ( a rare event ! ) ...

... we built this island a few summers ago but much of the time there is nothing to see of it above the water surface ...

... the local Buzzards were looking unusually tatty ... but good to see them in numbers ...

... then heading along the Gairs Track towards Geltsdale proper a Grasshopper Warbler reeled from a bed of rushes ... a little further along past the Neuk Wall and as another one reeled, it was just visible on a distant fence post ...

... and then the first Whinchat song came from the same gully ... distant again as it perched on a section of wall ...

... a Pied Flycatcher sang from near the Gelt at Low Hynam and Wood Warblers were in full song as they flew and glided from perch to perch ...and then one of the many Cuckoos perched up in full view on a tree top ...

Lockdown Birding ... still wandering the Pennine foothills ... Ring Ouzels in full song ...

More summer migrants are arriving all the time and numbers are building ... some new arrivals also ...

Wheatear numbers seemed slow to accumulate but now they are present and very visible around these parts ... 

Willow Warblers are singing wonderfully ... and while walking the tracks and lanes they are hardly ever out of earshot ... some nest building in progress ...

I usually think of the first week in April as the time to see Ring Ouzels at the foot of the fells ... the time seemed to have passed for these until just a few days ago when one flew onto a fence then started feeding among the grass ...

... one of the great delights of this spring has been the resurgence of Short-eared Owls ... they have seemed to have been missing for so long but with vole numbers on the up they are back ... this bird was from a few days ago but one this morning was my sixth bird over the past week or so ...

... then further up the track and a Ring Ouzel sang from a tree top ...

... eventually there were three birds singing against each other in the valley ...

... some of the song was more varied than I usually hear ... maybe this stems from multiple birds competing ...

... and another Stonechat ... always nice birds to see ...

... this morning Sedge Warblers were there in force ... singing away and performing extravagant aerial displays ...

Lockdown Birding as spring unfolds ... more summer migrants in ... residents in full song ...

Today was pleasant ... not warm at 5 deg C when I set off ... but little wind and the light was better for trying out my new Nikon Coolpix P1000 as I walked round the Geltsdale Reserve ...

With a focal length of 3000mm the temptation to use full zoom is hard to resist ... using less zoom is good where possible though ...

This nice singing male Reed Bunting was perching obligingly to give me time to explore the photographic options ...

Meadow Pipits were all over the place as I walked by Stagsike Meadow ... and clearly appreciating the gentle wind allowing them to stay a while on song posts ...

On their breeding territories Starlings take on a whole other character ...

... looking dominant and full of character on the wires ...

Common Sandpiper was back on the tarn but gave only a departing but satisfying glimpse ... whereas Lesser Black-backed, Black-headed and Common Gulls lingered at the east end ...

... a first-summer Common Gull among the prospective breeders ...

... and two female Goldeneye still on their winter grounds ...

... a fly-by pair of Greylags ... testing the capabilities of the camera ... and of me ... birds in direct flight are just about do-able with these cameras ...

... much easier though are those species that perch up for a while ... as with this female Stonechat ...

Lockdown Birding ... a slow tour on foot from home ... Willow Warblers in profusion ...

With the current restrictions on travel my birding is limited to the area here in the North Pennines ... what is never a problem here is social distancing ... it is very easy to remain 200m from any other person almost all of the time ...

The recent days have seen Willow Warblers flooding into every little copse and upland spinney ... the small wood at Clesketts had at least four singing males yesterday ...

... darting as they did among the largely leafless branches ...

A pair of Stonechats perched obligingly on some fence and gate posts ...

... with colour rings it should be possible to determine whether this is a breeding pair ( rather than a pair that have wintered together - often a different pairing, apparently )

On Tindale Tarn a pair of Teal were close to the viewing screen but took flight  immediately ...

... all the other birds on the tarn were typically distant ... two Great Black-backed Gulls were soon joined by two lesser Black-backed Gulls ... one an apparent second-summer bird ...

... slightly closer were two pairs of Common Gull, one occupying the recently built-up island which will hopefully not become flooded over as is so often the case here ...

... any hopes of a White Wagtail soon faded but this Pied Wagtail was at least not too distant ...           ( without carrying a 'scope while travelling on foot has its drawbacks ! ) ...

... and a nice male Wheatear was equally obliging ...

More winter birding around my area ... with ducks drawing my attention ...

One of the nice features of winter is the presence of small flocks of Bullfinches which seem to favour certain locations ... a small group of trees and bushes bordering the Hare Beck near to my house is one such place ... these birds were typically flighty when in roadside trees and skulky when in the bushes ...

With the returning American Wigeon again present at Grindon Lough it was a real surprise to be standing there on a March day and feeling the warmth of the sun.  Recent rains have added to the extent of the water body and where the bird was swimming is normally well above the shore line ... it was consorting with a small group of Wigeon and feeding actively ...

Today on the Solway at Port Carlisle the range of birds was a bit limited so I started to look more closely at some Wigeon in the old harbour ... the sun was shining and the foreheads of the males were looking a strikingly golden colour ... except they weren't all - a few had orangey brown foreheads while the rest of their plumage looked identical to the other males ...  the bird on the left has the duller forehead ...

... is this a feature of age, possibly first-winter birds ... or perhaps a retarded transition into breeding plumage ... or is it a variant ... so far the literature has not given me the answer ...

At Glasson Point some Goldeneye were bobbing about in the rough water as the tide began to come in ... some smart although rather distant males ...

... and a first-winter male showing the first traces of the white loral spot which had a strangely Barrow's Goldeneye look and shape about it ...

... and the lack of the third ( median covert ) wing bar confirming its immaturity ...