Ring-necked and Long-eared, but no Arctic...

Headed out for my belated first UK birding trip this morning. Picked up Mark at 0800 and by 0845 we were parking up at a cold and wet Cowpen Bewley Woodland Park. In the car park there was a familiar face ~ GM aka The Liver Birder was scoping the bird feeders having already been up to and back from the main site target.

At the pool we met up with John B and James. They had arrived earlier and had the drake ring-necked duck lined up for us nicely. Presumably its the returning drake from last year. Today's views were not as close as last time - the pool is ice free, so the ducks are out towards the back. The rnd was feeding with some tufties, gadwall and coot. The weather deteriorated somewhat so we moved on...

Seal Sands was very quiet, so we quickly retired to the cafe at Saltholme. Suitably refreshed we headed off to see the long-eared owl roost. Only one bird was visible this morning, as can be clearly seen from the photograph below.



Easy, eh?


The remainder of the reserve was quiet - one little egret appeared to be having a chomp at some apples, while the feeding station outside the visitor centre was busy with greenfinch, goldfinch, fieldfare and starling.

The journey north was pit-stopped with my first visit to Rainton Meadow. Today it was possibly the most windswept part of Durham! Sure, we found the redpoll flock, plenty of lesser and mealies... but no clear coue's arctic types. Granted, the flock was mobile, and when feeding many of the birds chose the deck rather than the feeders... may be I'll try again. Siskin and goldfinch spiced up the finch flock on the hillside, while at the visitor centre, chaffinch and bullfinch mixed with great and blue tit.

West Hartford remains bleak (1 grey heron) and the Horton Burn was low on the avian activity front too...