21st November ff
It isn't over the till the fat lady sings!
This apparently refers to an overweight soprano opera singer who sang the final song at the end of Wagner's Ring Cycle!
November 21st: Locke Park, Redcar
Confiding night bird!
A quick drive up the A19 to catch the black-crowned night heron before it disappeared again. I knew the light would be fading by the time I got there but I hoped I might get a decent view of this confiding bird and, maybe, some nice shots. It was on a weir at the west end of the park. It barely moved - just sat and watched us, occasionally closing its eyes. We were pretty close: it didn't mind us or the dog walkers.
November 24th: With Sheila around Hartlepool
Burning bright!
We arrived at Saltholme for a comfort break and a bit of shopping but a glance at the pager told me that there were bean geese down the Zinc Works Road. We shopped etc quickly and headed off. Lots of local birders present deep in discussion about taiga or tundra - or both. End result: 6 taiga bean geese rather distant but good scope views. Here's a couple of shots from my 500mm lens with 1.4 extender - and in poor light at 3200 ISO.
Tiger, tiger...
Next it was down the North Gare road to see if the owls would come out to play for Sheila. They did and she enjoyed a good long flight from one bird in particular...
We also fancied a decent walk as we hadn't been able to get out much in the recent poor weather so a trek down to see if the long-eared owls were around. No luck there, but we had good views of two pairs of stonechats and a group of reed buntings.
We saw lots of large flocks of birds wheeling around over Back Saltholme. Lapwings predominantly.
