Holy Island on 2 October 2022

Another excellent trip to Holy Island started with a look out over the causeway on the falling tide. We were treated to excellent views of Pale-bellied Brent Geese as they went about feeding on the exposed mudflats. Distantly on the sands of the Snook we had atmospheric scenes of Pink-footed Geese as they flew off in various directions to their daytime feeding areas. As is typical for the causeway there was a great variety of waders, with the most notable being Bar-tailed Godwit, Greenshank, and nearly full summer plumaged Grey Plover.

(Grey Plover - © Andrew Kinghorn (Birdwatch North East).

Just before we moved on we also had good views of a Peregrine that had successfully made a kill and came around to land on its prey. On the short journey to the car park on Holy Island itself we managed to see a Merlin that was also hunting the dune systems on the causeway.

Our first stop of the day was on the beach looking out toward St Cuthbert's Island, from here we enjoyed good views of Goosander and a good amount of hauled out Grey Seals is always a delight to see. Amongst the gulls we managed to pick out two Mediterranean Gulls of two age classes. Little Egrets were feeding in the rocks around the island itself, a scene unimaginable only a few years ago given the once rarity of the species. In the harbour there were lots of waders on show and all of them giving good views with Ringed Plover, Bar-tailed Godwit, Dunlin, and Redshank all in attendance. The fence line around 'Window on Wild' produced Stonechats and we also had two flyover Redwings too. We had our lunch stop around the farm, but we couldn't hear or see the reported Yellow-browed Warbler, though we did observe one of the local Sparrowhawks 'working' the bushes, presumably in the search of migrants. After lunch we headed to the Straight Lonnen willows where with a bit of patience we heard Yellow-browed Warbler and glimpsed it on a few occasions, we also had well as excellent views of both Common Redstart and Pied Flycatcher. After all the migrant passerine excitement we headed on to Emmanuel Head for a look out to sea. On arrival it was apparent there was a feeding frenzy of Gannets underway just offshore, shortly after arrival two Red-throated Divers flew past and a short time later we had both singles and parities of Little Gulls, much like the Mediterranean Gulls these too came in different age classes and showed very well. From here we headed onto The Lough to take a look from the hide, without a doubt the highlight here was Pintail and only our second Grey Heron of the day.

We finished the day off in the car park where we had successfully managed to see 70 species throughout the day. An excellent day with a few highlights but both Peregrine and Pied Flycatcher were mentioned by multiple guests.