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Little Auks - best place on the East Coast? (1 Viewer)

MrB

MrB

North-West Birder
The forecast is for the winds to shift North Easterly on Saturday night, and stay that way for at least 24 hours. So Sunday looks like a good day for this Manchester boy to cross the Pennines and look for Little Auks. (We hardly ever get them on this side of the country, so I've never seen one.)

Where would be the best place to watch from? - Bempton, Flamborough, Scarborough or somewhere I haven't thought of? I really want somewher not much more than 2hrs 30mins from home, so between Hartlepool and Spurn, please.
 
Any of the headlands really, so Filey, Flamboro or Spurn all good places to be. Bempton would be a bit too high up and the birds a bit far out to be in the running.
Having said the headlands, we had a cracking day a couple of years back at Barmston just south of Brid, in excess of 300 little auks past in the morning, very close in to the shore.
 
Can someone remind me of the year when there were hundreds recorded all down the east coast? It must have been about 5 or 6 years ago.

Cheers
Gareth
 
Keith Dickinson said:
Any of the headlands really, so Filey, Flamboro or Spurn all good places to be. Bempton would be a bit too high up and the birds a bit far out to be in the running.
Having said the headlands, we had a cracking day a couple of years back at Barmston just south of Brid, in excess of 300 little auks past in the morning, very close in to the shore.
Click to expand...
Thanks for that - up close is what I really want
 
gareth_blockley said:
Can someone remind me of the year when there were hundreds recorded all down the east coast? It must have been about 5 or 6 years ago.

Cheers
Gareth
Click to expand...

2007 was the most recent 'massive' year with the best count being 18,371 past the Farnes on 9 Nov. Many sites in the north-east had very large numbers. The best on my local patch (Whitburn) in this period was 11,218 on 11 Nov 2007. Numbers further south in Yorkshire were much smaller in this period.

If the weather is a bit rough/wet, Whitburn is an excellent option as there is a large stone-built seawatching hide to keep you dry. It's manned by a couple of local seawatchers from dawn every Sat & Sun. Makes a real difference to sitting out in the elements and this reflects on the results. We've had regular Little Auks during the last month peaking at 120 on 9 Nov.

Mark
 
whitburnmark said:
2007 was the most recent 'massive' year with the best count being 18,371 past the Farnes on 9 Nov. Many sites in the north-east had very large numbers. The best on my local patch (Whitburn) in this period was 11,218 on 11 Nov 2007. Numbers further south in Yorkshire were much smaller in this period.

If the weather is a bit rough/wet, Whitburn is an excellent option as there is a large stone-built seawatching hide to keep you dry. It's manned by a couple of local seawatchers from dawn every Sat & Sun. Makes a real difference to sitting out in the elements and this reflects on the results. We've had regular Little Auks during the last month peaking at 120 on 9 Nov.

Mark
Click to expand...
Whitburn's a little bit further than I was thinking of going, but the seawatching hide sounds like an attractive idea... I don't know the area, could you give me the name of the nearest road (to put into Google)? Thanks!
 
MrB said:
Whitburn's a little bit further than I was thinking of going, but the seawatching hide sounds like an attractive idea... I don't know the area, could you give me the name of the nearest road (to put into Google)? Thanks!
Click to expand...

This might help you, hopefully someone will give you more detailed directions...it is supposed to be near Jackies Beach.

http://www.southtyneside.info/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=6952&p=0

NB you may need a key to get into it ..see below
http://www.durhambirdclub.org/dbc.pl/news/other/2010/20100316a-WhitburnObs.html
 
Thanks very much for the info. Looks like it'll be too late to get a key for tomorrow, but the map will certainly come in useful.
There's also the question of will the Wheatear re-appear nr Scarborough...
 
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