10th February ff
Wind!
I'm tired of it. Please go away. We seem to spend hours each day picking up twigs and leaves from the trees in our garden as the winds give them a constant battering. Birding? Yes, I have been out but I haven't taken any photos. Mainly because of the distance between me and the birds in question or the poor light. A trip to Filey in January which featured no successes [abject failure to find a firecrest!] but I decided I should have included this one of Filey Bay some time ago - so here it is, belatedly.
February 19th was a good day for the bird list: a redhead smew at Nosterfield [Lingham Lake, quarry site], a ring-necked duck and a scaup at Ellerton Lake near Bolton-on-Swale and then on the 21st Barry and I went to North Duffield where I saw my first sparrowhawk of the year. Normally regular in the garden but strangely absent at the moment. Here's a view from the path to Garganey hide which was dry, by the way.
From there we proceeded to North Cave where we were really pleased to get close views of a drake scaup. Barry got some really good photos of the scaup and of a confiding pochard.
NG60EKK
Something different! I'm selling my wife's car. It's a Mini clubman estate, 1.6 Cooper S. Grey, manual. 29.01.2011 14,221 miles. Price £6950.00.
Contact via [email protected] if interested.
February 23rd: a trip up to Hartlepool. Still very windy and cold but saw my first avocet of 2020 at Greatham Creek [just one present, 5 today 24/2/20] plus a ruddy shelduck at Cowpen Marsh. Otherwise pretty quiet. The glaucous gull at Saltholme that if I did see it I couldn't convince myself for sure - so it's not on the list! I braved the wind at Newburn Bridge for a few photos - tide was very high so not much rock armour left for the waders.
The Headland from Newburn Bridge
The waders including an oystercatcher with a strange eyeball.
I waved the big lens around hopefully as some black-headed gulls were blown past.
All quiet at Saltholme even though I spent some time hoping for a water rail at the Watchpoint. An egret was tucked away on the edge of the reedbed.
Big surprise today as I drove down our road. I spotted a bird in a tree about 50 meters from our house and stopped to get a good look. I went home, Sheila grabbed the bins and shouted : 'It's a waxwing!' Confirming what I was pretty sure of already. Here it is taken from our bedroom window: hard to focus on anything other than twigs. It disappeared and then reappeared about 40 mins later and I spotted a blackcap in the same tree! A nice year tick [the blackcap] - I had seen waxwings in Billingham on 10th January.
