January 1st 2019
New Year's Day Snaps!
I suppose it's my own little private bird race. Main target this year was to do better than last year's 64 species. In fact I managed 73, just 2 short of my best year ever which was in 2013.
I started early and met up later with Barry by which time I had over 30 birds under my belt as it were. Parakeets in the park - Ward Jackson park to be precise.
Hartlepool Headland for turnstone, rock pipit, eider, curlew and oystercatcher, red-throated diver, guillemot and Mediterranean gull to mention just a few!
Barry was keeping his total noted down.
Newburn Bridge had a few nice waders in the sunshine.
Saltholme had quite a few more year ticks for us. I had never seen such large numbers of barnacle geese there before.
A cracking start to 2019!