Sunny on the patch...

It's been a beautiful sunny weekend in the north-east of England and birding has been rather restricted.

Saturday morning started early, with the final Mauritius blog images posted. By 07:00 I was at West Hartford enjoying the song of grasshopper warbler, lesser whitethroat, garden warbler, willow warbler, whitethroat and blackcap. Two canada geese were on the pool edge and a single shelduck stood amongst the gulls. A single greenshank scooted along the mud.

At Arcot the warbler activity was simlar, with sedge dominating the proceedings. Great-spotted woodpecker were clearly feeding young and a pair of canada geese has 4 young. One common tern was feeding over the pond.

Mid-morning saw me head north to Stewarts stomping ground, where good banter was shared with Stewart and Alan. No sign of the rosefinch though, as Stewart has already written, the arrival of lawnmowers into the gardens may have forced retreat...

It was a lazy afternnon, I spent most of it getting burnt in the garden!

Sunday dawned just as bright and warm as Saturday, and it was pleasing to have to dash out to West Hartford to "tick off" my first garganey on the site. A nice addition, though not unexpected, to the patch list.

Early afternoon was spent sprucing up a new header image for the blog - predominated by the June 2008 lesser grey shrike that was present on the Long Nanny, a stunning bird indeed.

While the rest of the UK is enjoying a flurry of decent birds... broad-billed sandpipers north and south, iberian chiffies continuing and bee-eaters in many locations, I wonder when the north-east will score for a spring overshoot? Soon...?