Winter Wonderland.

 

This is the view I had from the Geoff Smith hide at 10am this morning. Water everywhere, and a lot of it was frozen. There were a few pockets of open water, but most of the birds were on the river.

This squirrel found something to eat.

Alan came into the hide, he was hoping to see an American wigeon that had been reported yesterday.

Most of the birds were on the river and sheltering from the wind by staying close to the nearest riverbank, which hid them from our view. Even when a marsh harrier flew over, the ducks took to the air, but remained in roughly the same area. A skein of about 200 pink-footed geese flew around for a while before landing on a stretch of open water.

It was possible to see pintail and the odd shoveler in the distance, otherwise it was mostly teal and wigeon I could see.

Elaine arrived, with her little dog that she is training for deaf people. She left for lunch and shortly afterwards Alan left. Just as I was about to leave Gary and Wendy turned up, so I stayed for a while chatting. I then left and drove the short distance to Hagg Lane.

On previous visits I have seen corn buntings in this field but today all I could see and hear were skylarks and a single meadow pipit. I walked a little further along the lane.

Looking across the river I could see the viewing platform at Thorganby, but not a bird in sight, just frozen water. As I made my way back along the lane a flock of 45 golden plover landed in a field to my right, they joined 15 lapwings. Just before I got back to my car there was a field with a small pool of water and a small group of fieldfares were having a bathe and a drink.

Just one new bird for my year list today, but I enjoyed chatting to the people I met.