Near and far

 

A family day out at the cricket on Wednesday. Excellent package included food and drink and seats just behind the bowlers arm, and both home teams won!

Thursday I decided to go to Hartlepool area to do a sea watch and then go to Redcar on the way home to see the sand plover.

I drove through rain on my journey north and I was glad that I had my raincoat in the car, as it was on the cool side as I sat looking out to sea. Fulmars and shags flew close to the shore as they looked for food and there was a constant stream of terns going back and forth and a few gannets also out fishing. Where the terns were gathered together in large numbers to get fish, about half a mile off shore, their activities attracted the attention of skuas. There were 6 of us doing the sea watch and people would shout out when they saw a skua, so I was able to add bonxie, arctic and pomarine skua to my year list.

After a couple of hours sea watching I decided to walk down to the Pilots Pier and see what other birds were about. I saw this curlew

  further along a turnstone was looking for food

Lots of terns on the rocks, but a young lad was trying to show his grandad how far he could throw stones, so there was a lot of disturbance, so I was not able to check to see if any of the terns were roseate. Saltholme was my next stop, where I ate my lunch in the Phil Stead hide.

These black tailed godwits had just flown back in as a marsh harrier had flown over and disturbed everything. Time to go to Redcar.

My view from the car park. A friendly council worker, camouflaged in dayglow orange, told me that the bird was opposite the car park yesterday, today it was miles away!

So I set off on a long walk along the beach, heading towards South Gare. After about 30 minutes I met up with Pat, a fellow volunteer at Blacktoft. She and her friend had been there since about 2pm and it had not been seen for about an hour. 

The ringed plover and sanderlings were nice to see

I waited along with several other birders in a spot that the bird is reported to return to. After an hour I had to leave as I had only paid for 2 hours parking. I discovered later that the bird was further along the beach, closer to South Gare. It has not been reported since, so I should have gone to Redcar first.

On duty at Blacktoft on Saturday this week. Still a decent amount of water on Townend, Ousefleet screen and Marshland lagoons. 8 different waders plus a curlew sandpiper on Marshland.

Year tick number 199, what where and when will number 200 be?