March 2nd ..........to the woods

Tuesday the 2nd March and yet another bright sunny day has Spring arrived , I went up to Plessey Woods area for a walk through the woods Great Spotted drumming , and just an air of renewal Snowdrops still looking bright and fresh and took some time trying to get some real close ups of them but found they where all slightly out of focus on the monitor , just enjoyed the walk masses of Ramsons just poking through, I like this plant with its clean white flowers, this year I have been in the garden and noted the Lords & Ladies is also just coming through, 2 Mergansers on the river which was flowing very fast and looking very murky, 3 Treecreeper just keeping ahead of me the sun was very warm in the open areas given the shelter of the trees, a very nice walk , I will have to get out earlier if this keeps up.

As the sun had moved over leaving me in shade I decided to stop at St Marys Island , walked along to the Briardene carpark and the adult Med gull dropped in showing most of its black hood, I also found it later in the north bay with 100+ Black headed, much colder now on the coast and the tide was high I had just come down a little to late, Teal & Gadwall on the wetland along with 80+ Redshank roosting and 186 Curlew in the field just off the track..........a good day out for a change !!!

These are just fabulous little birds and quite feisty when they have to be !!!! I would love to see those northern ones

Marsh Tit which is always nice to see, getting harder than it used to be .
Trying one of those arty shots , you can see what I was after but its not quite working !
Coal Tit I usually get these in the garden
Nuthatch another favourite very common at times.
This is the same bird as below but looks to have much less black on its head a trick of the light
Why this adult should haunt this carpark is a mystery there used to be one at Blyth beach carpark but that has not been seen for some time perhaps its the same bird !!

Colour Ringed Lapwing........Cresswell

I have had two Colour Ringed Lapwings at Cresswell of late one I could only get the rings from one leg as the other was tucked in ,( most of the birds had one leg tucked in ) and this bird which took ages to get the full count of rings which is five , sent off several emails but as yet no replies , it's this years bird so must be someone looking for returns , can't see them getting many ,the upper rings are very hard to see .

and these from the garden , the berries on the ground are from my Mountain Ash ,completely stripped of every single berry, every single year since it started to produce them

I usually miss these berries of Lords & ladies