First of all we'll go to Flamborough Head...

October 18th: to the Lighthouse

The instructions were clear. In the lighthouse compound - not as I first thought the fog station compound where birds often turn up. The lawns were neat, the fencing rather rickety and three birders were peering over the wall into the compound and looking at the far end of the fence. An immobile bird was sitting there. It did move about eventually...

October 28th: Ropner Park, Stockton-on-Tees. A new site for me but thanks to satnav I found it easily and was able to park very close to an entrance to the park. It's a huge place and I was to find out later as I explored that I had managed to park as far away as possible from the lake where I hoped to see a red-crested pochard. The bird was very active amongst the other ducks and it was a lovely sunny morning.

I called at Saltholme but soon moved on and drove down the Zinc Works Road to see if any owls were active late morning. To my surprise and pleasure two owls were showing albeit rather distantly. A crow was intercepting the owls but in the words of a young grandson they were responding with an 'Am I bothered?' determination to ignore the crow.

Stonechat from the car.

Newburn Bridge was quiet at high tide. Just turnstones, oystercatchers, redshanks and ringed plovers. This one looked a bit fed up.

After drifting round the Headland I headed back to North Gare and parked along the access road. Three cars were parked up near the car park with big lenses ready for action. I stayed back about a third of the way along the road. I took too many photos to include them all, so here are a few of my best efforts.

200 UK 2024