Crash! Bang! Wallop! What a picture! What a photograph!

Half a Sixpence, Tommy Steele, 1965

Me

Explanation will follow later. Just reminiscing, really. Odeon Cinema, Preston, Lancs, sometime in 1965. Age 15. Right: mist nets?

On Tuesday I decided to head back to Hartlepool for better photos of the black-throated diver if I was patient enough to wait for it to come close. Various reports suggested it sometimes came very close indeed. The other reason was possible mealy redpoll at Saltholme. And I like the drive. Steady 65mph. What a good boy I was.

So I headed first to the Premier Inn, Hartlepool marina. Good views of up to 14 male mergansers plus females. No sign of the diver at first but I spotted it after about twenty minutes in the main basin where the PSS Wingfield Castle is moored. It was somewhat distant from where I was. I took some shots of the mergansers.

Red-breasted Merganser Red-breasted Merganser Red-breasted Merganser Red-breasted Merganser

I drove round to the south side of the basin but the diver had vanished. Some birders told me it had swum round to the other side of Jackson's Landing. I got back into Tiggy and drove round, the drive necessitating several roundabouts and about a three-quarter mile drive to go 200 metres! I parked by the deserted Jackson's Landing building with the diver visible alongside me! I jumped out, grabbed the camera. The diver had swum into a dead end where there were lots of boats, their colours reflecting in the water. I didn't realise just how good some of these shots would be.

When I got home and started to work on the photos I was amazed by the different colours in the water from different boats as the bird swam sedately past. At one point the bird just swam right past me! Looking at the images the thought just came to me: 'Crash! Bang! Wallop! What a picture! What a photograph!'

Some of my best, I think... Here they are, the wonderful black throated diver.

Black-throated Diver I suppose of all of them this is my favourite - the crash, bang, wallop pic!

Black-throated Diver Black-throated Diver

Black-throated Diver Black-throated Diver Black-throated Diver Black-throated Diver Black-throated Diver Black-throated Diver Black-throated Diver

Black-throated Diver More mergansers appeared too, coming just as close as the diver.

Red-breasted Merganser Red-breasted Merganser

Red-breasted Merganser After that anything else would no doubt be an anticlimax but I decided to head south towards Saltholme. A brief call at Newburn Bridge [low tide] with no sign of my med gull friend. I spotted this bird on the beach however.

Bar-tailed Godwit Godwit. Bar-tailed I wondered. Quite short in the upper leg looking through all the photos.

Bar-tailed Godwit

This photo convinced me it is bar-tailed.

Bar-tailed Godwit

On then to Saltholme via a quick drive up the North Gare access road. 'Road' is becoming a bit of a joke. The potholes are now ridiculous and some cars are really struggling. I used my mobile hide to snap these record shots of redshank, moorhen and lapwing.

Redshank

Moorhen

Lapwing At Saltholme on my way to the Wildlife Watchpoint area where the redpoll had been reported I saw movement in the reedbed. I expected something like a reed bunting to be the cause. I was delightfully wrong!

Blue Tit

I spent some time watching goldfinch, greenfinch, chaffinch and reed bunting, hoping to find the mealy redpoll among them.

Female chaffinches are rarely photographed. Note the green colouring.

Chaffinch Someone said the redpoll had been seen that morning - three of them. Funnily enough I eventually saw three redpoll on the banking across from the hedge everyone had been watching. Three lesser redpoll in my opinion, so no tick. I managed a couple of reasonably focused shots through all the dead plant material on the bank. The birds stayed only briefly and vanished on the stiff, cold wind.

Lesser Redpoll Lesser Redpoll Shopping, wrapping paper, tree lights beckon. Hope Barry's free this weekend...

Black-throated Diver