We carried out a beached bird survey along 1.2 km of Druridge Bay (Northumberland) in very good weather. There were 11 bird finds (including nine new finds). The new finds were mostly remains (not complete corpses) of three pigeons (wood / feral), a puffin, two guillemots, a black-headed gull, herring gull and a song thrush. I collected the complete sternum (breast bone) from a (wood) pigeon, the broken sternum from an adult guillemot and the song thrush wing and bone remains. One of our finds, the right wing remains from a first-year herring gull, was examined and measured indicating a likely male L. a. argenteus bird. Some of the live birds we encountered during our visit were sand martins, a meadow pipit with beak full of food, sandwich tern, black-headed gulls, linnet, whitethroat, blackcap and willow warbler. The photo shows Linda walking the shore of the bay. If anyone would like to find out more about the beached bird project, or become involved, please get in touch. Dan Turner
