Forest and coast birding

Chris and I decided to have a days birding on the East Coast, and to call in to the Raptor Viewpoint on the way. However before we left York, Chris sent me a message to say that the waxwing was back along his road, so I quickly drove to his road and took this picture. A good start to a days birding with a waxwing.

We had some snow on Monday and it soon melted away, it would appear that in the forest they had had more snow than us. Just before we got to the part of the forest we were going to visit, Chris stopped at a small lay by as he had seen crossbills at this spot before, There were at lest three birds, They were either in the trees, feeding in the grass or having a drink. We watched them for a while and they did not seem to object to our presence, so we carefully got out of the car, got our cameras and managed a few shots. Not brilliant photos as we did not wish to disturb the birds.

This was our view from the raptor viewpoint. There were 4 other birders at the viewpoint when we arrived and they told us where to look for the displaying goshawks. We had good views of them, the plans forthe day were going well. We saw more red legged partridges as we drove to our next destination, the day list was growing.

Along Forge Valley we stopped at one of the car parks where there are bird feeders and added blue, great, coal, marsh, and long tailed tits to our list and nuthatch and treecreeper.

Mandarind duck on a lake was another year tick for us and then Chris took us to "Dipper Bridge", where we found the water flow on the stream was covering the rocks in the water, so no dipper. However on the far bank was this dipper.

Another bird for our year list.Scarboro was our next stop. We did not find the peregrines sat on the cliifs below the castle, but fulmars were sat watching us.

Nothing special to be seen in the harbour.

Turnstone, redshank and Chris. Chris then drove us to the Holbeck area of the town where we found the resident med gull. Another year tick for me.

RSPB Bempton Cliffs was our last stop for the day. Gannets, fulmars and guillemots on the cliffs,

My first celandine of the year.

We saw a small group of seabirds on the sea and when we looked at them through our binoculars we could see that they were kittiwakes. One of the volunteers at the reserve told Chris, that you can identify them from a distance as kittiwakes as they form a tight little group and all face the same way.

Time to head for home. Chris had set our target for the day at 42 birds and we managed 53, of which I added 8 to my year list.

My thanks to Chris for doing the driving and finding the sites forthe birds.