Northumbrian Birding: Slow start to the year .......8th

Monday, 17 January 2011

Slow start to the year .......8th

Slow start to the year for me decided to go back to basics of birding , trying to find my own stuff the birding year did not start till about the 4th I was heading for the estuary but the report of Slavonian and Red Necked Grebe on the river by the quay was too tempting so much for finding my own stuff, anyway no sign of Slav a Great Crested Grebe present and what looked to me like a RNG well up river , but stopping a couple of places further along no sign.

4th January Great Crested Grebe (self found :) )

5th January fully tooled up with scope ,camera, digi camera ,flask ,sarnie and a clean hanky headed for Holywell gull numbers here usually increase at this time of year so it is as good a place as any for white wingers legged it down to the hide to find the door jammed again you have to grab at the base and work it open , opened the shutter to find the pond frozen solid and not a thing around and with little of interest coming to the feeders I headed off, passing the Beehive road stopped to scope two flocks of geese totalling some c350 Pinkfeet no collared birds or colour rings I could see, c150 Greylag so I decided to got down to the harbour ,you have park near the caravan storage area and walk in as no public car access.

Passing the yacht club area 7 Snow Buntings dropped onto the old yacht club jetty but did not hang around and where not seen again, not many gulls around , looking over to the pier I could see a couple of colour ringed Shag . Then I got my eye on a Red Necked Grebe coming up river .

5th Jan 6 of 7 Snow Buntings

5th Jan RNG swims past

5th Jan

Took me a good couple of hours to get some shots of the Grebe

8th January headed back down to the harbour to digiscope the colour ringed Shags just cant read the letters with the scope alone, Red Necked Grebe still around took a few more snaps even tried digiscoping it but got nothing useful , no sign of Snow Buntings a single Kittiwake and 2 Coot in the harbour.

8th Jan