A good day's birding!

To some extent there is a certain irony to this title as Barry Bishop and I spent a couple of hours sitting on a Saltholme bench overlooking Haverton Hole, waiting for a glossy ibis to appear. It never did! The wind blew from the north-east and was pretty lazy, blowing through me quite uncomfortably. Thirty yards away downhill towards the Allotment Pool it seemed another world - warm and pleasant out of the wind. The sun shone most of the time but made little impact on those waiting for the ibis. Other birds provided some interest, notably great crested grebes. Some greylags flew about noisily. Pochard seemed plentiful.

I forgot to mention that prior to going to Saltholme RSPB we went down the Zinc Road to North Gare and stretched our legs encountering the first meadow pipits of the year.

Great Crested Grebes Greylag Geese Eventually like most of the other birders we called it a day and decided to move on. A short cut over the transporter bridge would hasten our arrival in Skinningrove. However the bridge was closed for bungee jumping. We saw one man dangling inertly. Not for us although Barry fancied the view from the top. I must make sure he achieves that ambition...

We set off again and had more success at Skinningrove. Immediately some pipits were seen - both meadow and a few rock pipits too. Rock Pipit Then I spotted more movement and immediately saw both a black redstart and a stonechat, a very smart male, wearing a ring!Stonechat Black Redstart On the walk back I photographed some redshank together with turnstones and also a group of black-headed gulls frolicking in the surf.

By the car park is a wooden sculpture of a fisherman in the prow of an old boat. He makes an imposing figure.

Next we went up to Hummersea but saw little worthy of report. On then to Scaling Dam. Plenty of wildfowl but most interesting were the white-fronted geese still present in fields across fdrom the petrol station.Black-headed Gull Redshanks

We then headed home. As I said, a good day's birding. One year tick for me and a few more for Barry. All told 60 species of birds seen and not an ibis among them!