Sleeping Beauty!

I've been out and about looking for garganey mainly. Failed so far! Failed twice at Astley Lake and then again at Bank Island. No doubt I'll bump into one when I least expect to. So what have I seen?

March 25th took me to Scarborough to see a peregrine. That was the plan: peregrine on Marine Drive might be a bit tricky to locate and then move on to Bempton as everybody's been seeing the puffins there. Soon found the peregrine. While I was looking at the peregrine on the cliff this bird cruised along the clifftop. Not sure what it is...sparrowhawk?

...anyway, here's the peregrine.

I drove to Bempton. It soon became very apparent that everything had left the cliffs except a few gannets and the fulmars. There were some razorbills and guillemots on the water but I couldn't find a puffin!  Looking down to the water below I saw a couple of shags with nice tell-tale crests.

Cormorant fly-past and a pair of gannets. That was it!

March 26th: Bank Island visit. Lots of water and plenty of birds but the garganey was hiding. Quite a few pintails present.

March 27th: Astley Lake for invisible garganey [!] then very much obscured view of a little owl by Oddjob. It is one, honest!

Thursday March 31st: I decided I couldn't resist the temptation to go to Bempton and see if I could get lucky with the returning albatross. Seeing him was very straightforward from New Rollup looking towards Staple Newk.

He's on this photo!

There were other birds of course!  The albatross spent a lot of time asleep. I did manage some shots when he stirred!

Tuesday 5th April: drove to Seamer Tip to look for 4 reported garganey.

 At this time of year our hedgehogs are very active in the evenings and our hedgehog houses are obviously a meeting point. I think we have at least 4 different hogs at the moment and here's some of action from last night [05/04.22] I love how the fox sneaks in to grab some dropped seed and doesn't interfere with the 2 hedgehogs!

141 UK 2022