East coast birding

 

Scarborough Harbour on a cold damp Monday morning. In the harbour I spotted a red-throated diver, and just managed this shot as it swam out into the bay.

A great northern diver swam into the harbour and started to dive for food and caught a crab.

I think that is the lump in its throat.

RSPB Bempton was my last stop for today. I could not find a woodcock in the Dell, even though it was reported that there were 5 present. No luck either with snow bunting or corn bunting at Jubilee Viewpoint. I did see 3 flocks of small birds, but due to the poor light I could not determine what they were.

My first gannet of the year

Watching fulmars brought back happy memories of the time I spent on Foula, Shetland.

A kestrel was out hunting.

About 1430 the short-eared owls appeared, 3 of them.

They did not come very close.

A pleasnt if cold day on the coast.

Big Garden Birdwatch part two.

 

We were based in Homestead Park, York for the second day of the BGBW. The weather was not as good as yesterdays but better than the forecast.

We had a base inside where families could enter a quiz, make flannel chicks, do colouring or buy pin badges, and on a day like today it was very popular.

We placed some feeders in trees around the meadow and we were able to show visitors the birds.

Over the 4 hours we were there we managed to see 16 different types of birds.

Big Garden Birdwatch Part 1.

 In the Museum Gardens, York today with Andy and Isobelle.

For a welcome change this event did not clash with Residents Weekend.

Plenty of interest from visitors to the gardens and we lead a series of walks to see the birds in various parts of the site.

Near the Marygate entrance is a Cotoneaster bush and blackbirds and redwings were visiting the bush to feed on the berries. At the bird feeding station we saw blue, great and coal tits, robins, dunnock and goldcrest. A fly through by a sparrowhawk sent them all scattering for cover.

Part 2 at the Homestead Park tomorrow, let's hope that the rain does not spoil things.

Egrets at RSPB Fairburn Ings

 

H&S checks and then a spot of birdwatching before helping with a walk to see the Murmuration.

I went to the Bob Dickens hide to look at the birds on the Main Lake. Lapwing, mute swan, tufted duck, pochard, goldeneye and goosander. I heard a green woodpecker on my way back to the Doug Pickup hide.

From here I saw cormorants and goosander fly towards the Lin Dike end of the reserve. Highland cattle were grazing close to the reeds around the scrape, when I noticed a cattle egret.

Another 3 egrets flew in and started to feed. Blue, great and long-tailed tits were visiting the feeders along with robins, goldfinches and a male bullfinch.

A red kite was hunting over the field to the right of the hide and as I was watching it a great-white egret flew toards the scrape.

Time to go to the visitor centre and meet the people who have booked on the murmuration walk.

It had been raining all day and visibility was not great, so we were not sure what kind of murmuration there would be. 

Not a great photo but I think that  you might just make out the dark cloud of about 20,000 starlings.

Bean Goose

 

A misty Monday morning at Blacktoft Sands, where I met Stu. Lots of wigeon on Marshland Lagoon

Nice to see pochard on Reedling lagoon.

Large flocks of geese on the field next to the reserve, mostly greylag with at least one bean goose. I tried to get a picture but the geese were close to the floodbank and I did not want to disturb them. So my pictures have either grass or fence in the bottom which does not help.

The bill marking is different to usual Tundra bean geese, but the general opinion is that they are Tundra bean geese.

On my way home I called in at North Duffield Carrs.

Water levels are slowly going down. large numbers of greylag and canada geese, plus wigeon, pintail, goldeneye, scaup and tufted duck. lapwings, dunlin and redshank on the exposed bits of land. A pair of stonechats on reeds around the scrape were my first of the year.

North Duffield Carrs

 

The water level are still dropping and access to garganey hide is better, even though the floor is still slippy and there is rubbish from the recent flood on the ledges.

Various strips of land above the water level, this one was occupied by geese, mostly Canada geese,

including these 2 "granadas"!

Several pintail about, this is the closest thta one came to the hide.

Goldeneye were also present but again keeping their distance.

At the far end of the reserve I saw 2 male scaup, my 3rd year tick of the visit. On my way back to the car, I disturbed a small flock of linnets, year tick number 77.

Black-throated diver

 The weather forecast was for milder conditions, and as today is my only free day until next week, I decided to pay my first visit of the year to the Hartlepool area, where a black-throated diver had been seen.

This is the area that the diver has been frequenting. often not getting closer than the whote buoy you can see in the photo. There was no sign of it on my first visit today, but I bumped into Graham from Nosterfield on the Headland, who told me that he had just seen the bird, so I drove back to the area.

Carolyn was still there and told me where the bird was. It eventually came close enough for one or two photos.

After seeing the black-throated diver I drove to Newburn Bridge. The tide has started to go out but several waders remained sheltering amongst the rocks.

A med gull flew in to join the black-headed gulls.

RSPB Saltholme was my last stop of the day. Teal, little egret, mallard, moorhen, gadwall, shelduck and a shoveler were on the water in front of Phil Stead hide.

A pleasant day with a list of 42 birds, including 10 year ticks.