Cold enough for penguins

 

Sunday December 11th became a free day due to the weather, so I decided to try to see the king eider at Redcar. It was very cold but visibility was good. I saw a birder on the beach so walked out to join him. Like him I could see eiders but no king eider. Plenty of sanderling and oystercatchers and a few redshanks. As the tide was going out the dog walkers and horse riders were along the waters edge and kept disturbing the birds.

I saw a group of birders further along the promenade and walked down to join them. A group of eiders were on the sea and the birders were using their scopes to scan through them. The eiders were living up to their reputation of liking rough seas as they were feeding near some rocks and the birds were often out of view due to the waves. I did manage a couple of views of the king eider, but it was difficult. After a couple of hours I left and drove to Hartlepool Headland.

There was a couple of inches of snow on the ground, which was picturesque but made walking a bit tricky, I was hoping that there would have been lots of birds close to the shore and on the rocks, but there were fishermen about and no birds to be seen.

I walked down to the Pilot Pier hoping to see birds in the entrance to the harbour, but again no birds to be seen.

Lots of ringed plovers and sanderlings on the pebbles at Newburn Bridge. The car park is on a slope and getting out was tricky.

Zinc Works Road was my last stop. Lots of curlews, lapwings and golden plovers in the fields. A pair of stonechats were busy feeding and at one point were picking up insects from the road.

On Monday and again today I went to Askham Bog. I put some bird seed on to some fence posts and small birds soon came to feed. Nuthatch, marsh tit, blue tit, great tit, dunnock, blackbirds and lots of redwings.