Spring birding ... always a joy ... St.Bees, River Esk, Geltsdale

With a brisk southerly wind blowing St.Bees Head felt more like winter than spring ... but birds were there ... and in numbers

... the ledges were packed with Guillemots ...

... and on the sea they swam in strange lines ...

... a few small parties of Gannets flew south ...

The notable absence, or near absence was that of Kittiwakes ... I saw none on ledges, a group of about ten landed briefly on the sea before moving off and I heard one call just once.  So why was my experience here so very different from how it had been on the River Tyne where they were so very present ?

The wild conditions at St.Bees prompted a move to somewhere with more potential for migrants ... so, to the River Esk above Longtown ...

A Dipper fed avidly in the edge of the river, still high and gushing from recent rains ...

and flew off upstream ...

while a pair of Goosanders were more confiding than usual on this stretch ...

but not for long ...

the Oystercatchers were now all in summer plumage in contrast to how they were only a couple of weeks before ...

Sand Martins were present in good numbers - maybe a hundred flying over the water and dipping over some riffles where some insect prey species must have been present ...

In a more sheltered area below the bridge a Chiffchaff sang away ...

I sound recorded one in Finglandrigg Wood last month and looked at the sonagram of its song ... quite a complex pattern with the 'chiff' and the 'chaff' not looking quite how I expected ...

the dense part of the tracing certainly shows an up and down succession but there is also a wide band of frequencies in both notes from about 3,500 - 7,000 Hz which is what gives the song that particular quality - less of a pure musical note and explains the 'ch' part of the 'chiff' and the 'chaff'  

Comparing Chiffchaff song with the superficially similar but actually very different song ( one of the songs ) of Great Tit does a lot to explain their very different quality ...

The frequency width of each note is much narrower so the notes have a more pure, musical quality ...

In the clear blue skies of this morning the Geltsdale Reserve had quite an Alpine feel ...

Golden Plovers sang on the high ridges near Cold Fell and Red Grouse 'exploded' close to our feet, eight Buzzards were in the air above Howgill where a Willow Warbler produced some plastic song typical of this time of year before the fully crystallised song appears.  A pair of Lesser Redpolls posed nicely on an Alder ...