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April 03: North Newcastle on Tyne A real treat in store at the local country park bird feeders. 10. Brown Rat A late afternoon walk ended with us crossing a fallow field on a footpath as the sun was setting - partner spotted a partridge in the distance, and we eventually got great views on...

March 30: Beadnell Bay, Northumberland Took a day off work with my partner to take advantage of the excellent weather and do a coastal walk up Beadnell Bay. Tern colony not fenced off yet, so we were able to cross the Long Nanny at low tide on the way to Beadnell, and return over the bridge and...

March 28: North Newcastle on Tyne Sharp-eyed partner spotted a Goldcrest in low scrub near a railway line path on our step-accumulating late morning walk. I was momentarily excited as I caught a flash of white in the undergrowth, but it turned out to be the wing bar, not an eye stripe...on our...

March 26: NW Durham Another 'green' year list addition, not too far from my village, seen on a very wet 10km walk this morning. A sign of the times that this was actually the target species of today's walking route, no. 50 on my local walking list for the month. 88. Meadow pipit

March 20: NW Durham Surprised I haven't seen a hare yet on my local walks; disturbed my first of the year as I was driving into the village in the early evening as light was fading. 9. Brown hare

March 18: NW Durham A brief trip to the garage for sticks and heat logs for the fire; on the journey back about 19:00 got a great but brief view of a barn owl hunting in a young plantation next to the road. 86. Western Barn Owl March 19: NW Durham I had just been lamenting the dearth of...

March 15: NW Durham One more for the mammal list, seen crossing my path on a late afternoon walk from home. 8. Stoat

March 07: Warkworth beach 84. Common scoter March 10: NW Durham 85. Lesser black-backed gull

Mar 04: North Newcastle on Tyne Another one for the mammal list, partner not wild about having a mouse under her fat ball feeder. 7. Wood mouse Mar 05: Big Waters, Newcastle Brisk walk from my partner's place, who wasn't feeling too great today after her AstraZeneca vaccination. Didn't stop...

Mar 01: NW Durham An hour and a half walk of 6km wasn't enough to meet my charity walk goals (cf 'My Birding Day'), but yielded a couple of new additions to the year list, one of which I hadn't seen locally for some years. There was a certain inevitability about seeing another willow tit soon...

Feb 27: North Newcastle-on-Tyne We weren't more than 200m away from my partner's house when she spotted a treecreeper, which gave great views. She confidently predicted she'd get me willow tit and yellowhammer next, and sure enough she was right! I reciprocated by finding her some skylarks -...

Feb 20: Coquet Estuary near Warkworth, Northumberland The above title looks really bad in the context of lockdown, but let me explain....my partner and I needed to take the work van up to Northumberland to pick a bulky item up, and decided to take a slightly more circuitous route back south...

Feb 19: NW Durham Had to go into the office today, and got an addition to the mammal list as a weasel ran across the road. Could've been two species if I'd been able to identify what it had in its mouth - probable common shrew, but in any event almost certainly deceased! 5. Weasel

Feb 18: NW Durham This is about as plastic a tick as you get round here, but avian excitement is hard to come by at the moment when I'm stuck in the house working most days. And if I'm correct, the first species of 2021 I didn't see in 2020. [EDIT: my last woodcock was 2019...] 76...

Feb 12: NW Durham Quite a lot of finch activity in some trees at the back of my house this afternoon, with a mixed flock of mostly chaffinches with some goldfinches - and a couple of siskins. 75. Eurasian Siskin

Feb 10: North Newcastle on Tyne Morning at my partner's place - despite my recent work trip, I'm still behind her on my year list, thanks to a greater diversity of species at her feeders and local area. She helped me this time though in pointing out a female reed bunting coming to a feeder -...

Feb 09: Dunfermline Work trip to Scotland, not exactly well timed as I had to drive through a blizzard on the A68 near Dalkeith and the Edinburgh bypass to reach my hotel. Just about to leave the following morning when a flock of 100+ pinkfeet flew SE over the car park. The subsequent drive up...

Jan 24: St. Mary's Island Well, this is stretching lockdown a bit I know but as my partner actually lives in North Tyneside I guess this could be construed as 'local area', and she was desperate to see the sea. Lots of other people clearly had the same idea, although we went deliberately late...

Jan 23: North Newcastle-on-Tyne Discovered a few new footpaths around my partner's place, trying to avoid people on the more heavily trafficked paths - moving closer to town not such a great idea now we have a pandemic. Things have got pretty bad when I get excited about seeing a pheasant, and...

Jan 21: North Newcastle-on-Tyne Back at my partner's, and decided to take a morning off work and pay another visit to Big Waters for er, 'exercise', as we'd heard too late about the American wigeon which had been seen at the weekend - should've checked the numerous wigeon a bit more carefully...

Jan 17: North Newcastle-on-Tyne Walk from my partner's home taking in Big Waters. Quickly added common gull on a playing field, then scanned the gulls at Big Waters carefully as there were reports at the start of the year of an adult Iceland gull on Twitter. No luck for us today, but good...

Jan 16: Morpeth Another essential trip to the pharmacy with the added bonus of a walk by the river. Added my first unequivocally feral pigeons, having just seen tight flocks of racing pigeons before now, together with a little grebe on the river and a displaying sparrowhawk circling overhead...

Jan 10: North Newcastle-on-Tyne Another errand rewarded by a flock of rooks in a pasture field, then I finally added a female bullfinch in my partner's garden. A walk past a nearby stubble field in the afternoon which has frequently supported winter thrushes gave us a flock of at least 150...

Jan 09: Morpeth Essential journey to collect a prescription for someone, so today's exercise was by the River Wansbeck...very different weather here with no snow, reflected in the additions to the year list of an overwintering chiffchaff and a song thrush. The male goosander that likes hanging...

Jan 08: NW Durham Another short walk in the woods in an attempt to maintain sanity. Quiet again and more picturesque than yesterday after an additional overnight / morning snowfall, snow still on the trees although above freezing and starting to melt. Great tits vocal and practising for spring...