honey_b.king_e.little_t.

I spent a pleasant day with STH, ADMc and Phil south of the region today. First stop was Wykeham, North Yorkshire where we had very prompt views of honey buzzard - albeit distant, but prolonged and some amazing butterfly-clapping display. A good start! A further hour produced no more hb sightings, but tree pipit, bullfinch etc added to the day tally.

Further east we took the long walk to Filey Brigg, where reasonable views were had of the 1st summer king eider. Loafing with a female norther eider, the bird had been closer prior to our arrival, but given that it was a sunny day, there was a lot of disturbance from beach-trippers. Not to worry, its a rather grotty bird anyway!

Our journey home was paused with a brief look at the beach at Crimdon Dene -no sign of the colourful female dotterel that two of the party had seen the day previously, but there were plenty of little terns...

Right... time for the world cup final!

Black-throated Thrush

It was an early start today as there was the important business of securing a uk-tick ~ a black-throated thrush has conveniently been feeding in a small garden in Newholm, a village just west of Whitby, North Yorkshire. The pager service confirmed that the bird was there as we passed Scaling Dam, and it was with some relief that the bird was feeding in the well stocked garden upon our arrival.

Pity the weather was so bad - it was very overcast and raining heavily. This mean't that light was very poor for photography, so high ISO had to be utilised (1250!) as flash was not really an option.

The results were pleasing, perhaps enhanced by the confiding nature of the bird. Having fed at the "house end" of the garden (approx 12 meters away, the image with the thrush facing left on top of feed and snow depicts this position), the thrush suprised us all (the massive <20 crowd...!) by flying down to "our" end of the garden and proceeded to feed on suet / apples kindly placed out by the home owner.

Fantastic!

I managed a couple of images at ISO640, which helped reduce noise, but all in all the camera, albeit wet, performed really well.

One of the residents came out and offered us all cups of tea, which was very kind. Hopefully birders present will continue to behave and make the correct impression to this community.

If you are heading up/down to see this bird, please give generously to the RNLI collection!

Red Grouse

It was another bitterly cold day in the north-east of England, and this red grouse could surely feel the nip! This individual was photographed early afternoon on the North Yorkshire moors, near Commondale after a cold but successful morning near Whitby... more on that next!

The afternoon finished as well as the day had started, when CB picked up two bewick's swan (a county mega these days) near Blyth - a quick hop into the car and the two birds were being grilled within minutes of the call from STH. Great stuff.