Funny Old Weekend

I hadn't been out for a couple of days and stayed in again on Saturday. The gull roost across from the house was quite large. Could see herring, lesser black-backed and greater black-backed gulls.  Saw a crow on a garage roof across from us playing with something. Photographed through glass it had obviously stolen a fat ball in a net and had taken it to the roof to disassemble. Determination was the key!

Crow Crow

Meanwhile in the back garden a song thrush was singing away and seemed happy to continue with me nearby.

Song Thrush I had gone out with the camera hoping to catch the busy blue tits as they were clearly feeding young in the nest box on the old larch. This proved easier said than done. However the successes certainly brought a smile to my face.

Blue Tit

                                                                  Inward

Blue Tit Blue Tit

                                                                Outwards!

That evening when we were watching the hedgehogs again I suddenly realised a fox was there too in the darkness just a few metres from the kitchen window. It's obviously been a great week for live mammals here in York.

The really pleasing news was that I have a photo in the June edition of BirdWatching. My firecrest from South Gare, Cleveland.
Firecrest Nothing like that this weekend however. I tried hard to make a disaster of Sunday. I had decided to go to Tophill Low to try to photograph garden warblers. En route I saw from the pager that the citrine wagtail reported from Flamborough was still knocking about. I love that phrase. Knocking about. What's knocking about next week? Wouldn't we like to know!! So I diverted to the fishing lake and Thornwick Pool. On arrival I discovered that I had packed everything except a coat and hat. It was cold and breezy; I walked around trying to tell myself it was bearable. No-one could locate the bird - last seen 8.38am. I went home. Didn't want another cold like the last one.

Every pager has its day I suppose. As I neared York pager said Temminck's stints York University. I knew just where to go. It was much milder inland [and I nipped home for a hat and coat] and the two birds were showing nicely. A bit distant for detail but quite nice  'in their element' photos. A few below:

Temminck's Stint Temminck's Stint Temminck's Stint After that I went home and built a new bird table to replace the one that just recently fell to bits. I sometimes say you can see lots of birds from our house. Here's just a few from my study window this afternoon.

That's all folks. Weather's getting warmer next week. TTFN!

Still 223.