Sunday highs and lows.

I had a brief sorte up to Druridge Bay this afternoon, heading direct to the Budge fields for disant views of the drake green-winged teal - he was mixed in with a healthy 30+ group of eurasion teal. Four shoveler were also present, and apart from lapwing and curlew there was not much else.

East Chevington held a good number of pink-footed geese, and it transpired later that a single tundra bean was present too. Dip 1. Four redhed smew were on the south pool and the north pool was quite barren.

Heading back down to Cresswell there was (again) no sign of the barn owl. Dip 2. And I failed to pick out the tundra bean goose that was reported later in the fields north of Bell's Farm. Dip 3.

No sign of the waxwing at Ashington (Dip 4), so it was back home via West Hartford. As usual (!) it was the highlight location of the day with twelve oystercatcher (great Feb' record), six eurasion teal, 27 lapwing and a few of bhg, hg, & cg. A single buzzard was noted in the northen fields.

Arriving home late afternoon I decided to pull the bird feeder closer to the house and have positioned a few branches near to the feeders in an attempt to provide some garden bird photography opportunies over the next few days... we'll see how successful it is as the first week of March progresses...