long tailed tit salterhebble marina

a long walk,no waxwings

took it on myself to walk the few miles for the waxwings near tesco's did i see any?
did i fuck!
then walked back in to town checked all the areas but still no waxwings

even scarlett tried her best

november is the new october!

after last weekends haul of good birds,today continued the run.

potteric carr

firstly the strangest event of the day was nick d ringing before 10!!!
spent most of the visit looking or waiting for the caspian gull.the gulls started to arrive at around 1430.the hide was not as full as i would of thought.i noticed a bird which fitted 'caspian' but on a closer look it did'nt fit but it still looks odd.
as people left the hide at fourish it was left to nick,me and a couple from oldham to carry on,the guy from oldham kept going on about a gull but he said it had 4 'mirrors'.
it appeared i was the only one in the hide that had seen caspian gull so a look through nicks leica scope with the zoom,the bird was a classic caspian gull ......................
the main thing i look for is not 'mirrors' but the shape of the bird and the jizz
so

beady eyed
darker mantle
long thin snouty bill
common gull look to the head
dark eyed

as the four of us got our eye in the gull became easier to pick out

not caspain but what?
bottom left

yellow legged gull

chaffinch

great tit

the pied wheatear was shit but things got better

after seeing dave mansells photos of the pied wheatear nick and me headed over mid morning,the bird was not showing well and it was shit,well all the dog shit strewn around like cluster bombs made the visit even worse.

pied wheatear and a bottle of carlsberg

after looking at some geese,namely 2 bean geese and 6 white fronted geese we headed for fish and chips at filey.nick went mad and declared the fish and chips from the 'brown room' 9/10! staggering as i gave them 3/10 i think i won as the only thing good about them was the 4 med gulls that fed on them at holbeck car park

med gull 1st winter

med gull adult

by now the rain had set in,so i suggested a walk round scarbourgh harbour.we parked on the headland.a fishing boat coming into harbour had about 200 gulls following it,immediately i saw a white winged gull flying over the boat,due to the distance i called glaucous gull(the bird looked very large)a few minutes later i refound the bird sat on the water a lot closer,nick set his scope up and thought it was a iceland gull due to the dark bill.
now the confusion set in we both thought we had seen a glaucous gull flying around the boat but at a closer view sat on the water we identified it as a iceland gull!!! 2 bird theory? or just the iceland gull looked larger due to its colour?
getting soaked to the skin i was ready to give up on the day,but saw a great northern diver then nick saw the long tailed duck as nick phoned the news out,i headed to the other side of the harbour,i noticed that some gulls were coming in off the sea,i checked the gulls on the slipway,just herring and great black backed,as nick turned up we had the following conversation

nick 'iceland gull behind you'
me 'eh,what,where?'
nick 'behind you'
me (looking up into the sky) where'
nick ' its stood behind you'
me 'oh fucking hell'

iceland gull

great northern diver

steppe grey shrike

well about fucking time this autumn got going on the east coast

todays fantastic steppe grey shrike in lincolnshire was only spoiled by the selfish twats with the big lenses,who thought it would be a good idea to chase the bird around the field.

quote of the day by a birder 'i'm going to twat one of those cunts'

with a bit of patience the shrike would land in front of you

steppe grey shrike

nick d gets a lifer

name and shame

amur falcon suppression(maybe,not sure)

news has reached me that the AMUR FALCON was still present at the end of october!!! news was kept quiet to avoid too many birders turning up! which i find odd as tophill low charges about £4.50 per person,so i cannot see them wanting to lose that sort of cash!
i have first hand experience of the money making tactics used at this site
back in 1997 we went for the bairds sandpiper on the sunday morning,got there at 07.30 but had to wait until 08.00 to get in.we waited after paying our cash just to be told at just after 08.00 it had not been seen and had gone!!!!

what a set of bastards

the 'WITH' this evening

grey partridge 8
meadow pipit 1
kestrel 1
carrion crow 2

the 'with' early morning

not bad this am

goldeneye 1 female
redwing 16
fieldfare 4
red grouse 1
dipper 1
wood pigeon 1
kestrel 2
reed bunting 8
wren 1
carrion crow 6
meadow pipit 2