I was up in County Durham for New Year's, this being a prime opportunity to mop up on some goodies before descending back south on the 2nd.
I spent the first half of the day at Redcar with my good friend, Nick Preston, who I've been fortunate to have travelled with to Guyana and Brazil. Being his patch meant we were able to clean up on most of the target birds for the morning.
We started off at Redcar promenade, with the highlights being the drake King Eider, a couple of Velvet Scoter, a lovely flock of Sanderling and a good variety of other coastal birds. The eider took a while to find, but eventually it showed, albeit at some distance. Next, we stopped at a few sites along the Gare, with a stunning Long-eared Owl, a Great Northern Diver, a Purple Sandpiper and a small skein of Pink-footed Geese being the highlights.
On the 2nd, a circuit of Bishop Middleham brought in the usual suspects, but a Willow Tit and a small gathering of Tree Sparrows were all reminders I was far away from southern England.
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| female Ring-necked Duck (seen on 30 Dec) |
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| Long-eared Owl |
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| Willow Tit |
Roll on to the next weekend, and I joined forces with Steve Wilson for a day in Devon. The main highlights from the day was the superb Laughing Gull which took an age to find (the bird lingering in a different car park not helping matters) and a drake Ring-necked Duck at Slapton and Beesands respectively. Due to time pressures, we then had to get a move on and get to Seaton Marshes. Probably the most random place I will see an Isabelline Wheatear in the UK as it bounded along a boardwalk, separated by two saturated fields! Still, as it was in very close company to an Eastern Yellow Wagtail (a very belated UK tick), all was good.
Unfortunately for the latter two species, I didn't take my camera as we were promised rain. This didn't materialise and both birds were seemingly not bothered by our presence... so I've stolen a few images from a photographer perched next to me.
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| Laughing Gull at Slapton |
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| Eastern Yellow Wagtail by Karen Jayne |
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| Isabelline Wheatear, Eastern Yellow Wagtail & Scandinavian Rock Pipit by Karen Jayne |
