"North" birding

 New Year Birding and I decided to visit North Cave Wetlands and then come home via North Duffield.

In the "good old days" I have been with Chris to Hartlepool area on New Years Day and I think that our record was 77 birds in the day. Hartlepool is "out of bounds" at the moment as it is in tier4.

I was surprised that I did not have to scrape ice off my car windscreen and the car display was reading 4 degrees. However by the time that I reached North Cave the temperature had fallen to 1 degree. Dryham Lane was like a sheet of ice and it was difficult to stand up. Even dogs were finding it hard to stay upright!

I started my walk through the entrance near the road. I could not see any birds from either the East or Turret hides. A few chaffinches were on the feeders, but there were not many birds about, no doubt due to the cold conditions.

From the next hide I could see lots of gulls standing on the ice.

Further along the path, a small party of siskins were busily feeding in the alder trees. My list was slowly increasing. Blackbirds, blue tits and robins were busy at the feeding station.

I did not go into Crossland Hide as the birds on the lagoon were closer to the road than the hide. On the stretch of open water were mute swans, black swan, canada geese, mallard, teal, gadwall, shoveler and wigeon.

A pair of bullfinches were working their way down the hedge. Lots of blackbirds were feeding on the berries in the hedgerow and this redwing.

a bit further down the hedge this squirrel was also eating the berries.

I don't know who was most surprised when I looked through the "window" in the next viewing screen!

South hide had no birds on view

The weather changed quite quickly giving the area a bit of atmosphere at times.

I was back at my car and completed my list. 35 birds, not a bad start. The reserve was now very busy so I decided to go to North Duffield. On my way I added 4 more to my list.

The car park was empty at North Duffield, which is always nice to see at this special time.

As I walked along the path, I could see lots of lapwings and winter thrushes in the field on my left.

When I got into the hide and looked out of the windows I was surprised to see very few birds.

perhaps is was the weather conditions or was it the shooting party?

On the bund in front of the hide I could see a few lapwings, redshank and dunlin.

As I sat and ate my lunch the weather kept changing

One minute it was raining then sunshine.

A fieldfare landed in the field on my left looking for food.

A pair of stonechats were looking for food in the reedbeds, while at the riverside of the reserve 2 marsh harriers were hunting. There was a mixture of gulls standing on the ice, while a few ducks and swans were on the river.

A sparrowhawk flew past the hide, which was the seventh bird I added to my list, which then stood at 46.

I came home via Bank Island where I added buzzard and house sparrow to my list to bring the total to 

48 for the day, a good start to the year in the circumstances.