Wrong Direction?

Headed south this morning to Teesside for a meet up with John B and Mark. Heavy rain predominated the visit, but we did manage to collect little ringed plover, avocet (many at Greatham Creek, good to see), reed warbler, 2 wood sandpiper, drake garganey, little egret, yellow wagtail and little gull.

Undoubted highlight of the trip was arriving at Cowpen Bewley late morning (no rain!), and being treated to very decent views of the singing nightingale - I think it's only the third I've actually "seen".

Look at the tree and listen to the nightingale here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZCFvrds3K8&feature=youtube_gdata_player

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...

Ring-necked Duck

An email from Tom Tams on Saturday afternoon contained some very nice images of the seemingly settled drake ring-necked duck at Cowpen Bewley Woodland Park - so that was Sunday sorted then!

I picked up Colin Bradshaw at 10:00 and by 11:00 were were having our fill of this dapper drake. Cold conditions continue in the north-east, so it was little suprise to find that the RNDs chosen pool was 95% frozen. Luckily for us, the remaining un-frozen patch was close to the foot path, so at worst the bird was only 10 meters or so away.

The duck spent a considerable time dozing, so we had to be quick to shoot when he lifted his head! This species has a striking bill, and the orangey~yellow eye really did stand out. Given the birds close proximity plenty of shots were taken and I expect I'll post a couple of more quirky images during the week.

Tom had scored with bright sunny conditions on Saturday - Sunday was dull and it was not long before the snow arrived, forcing an early end to the photography. All was not lost though - Saltholme RSPB is only round the corner and we were soon enjoying views of twite and linnet from the relative luxury of the packed cafe, binoculars in one hand, bacon buttie in the other. Happy days!