Tuesday 28 March 2017
What a Grey Bay
I had a nice walk with Gwen, my wife, at a very dull and murky Druridge Bay this morning. We started at Druridge Pools where the Great White Egret was showing well, walked up to Chibburn mouth and back down the beach. There was a nice flock of Twite on the haule road, but no sign of the Shore Larks on the beach.
Friday 3 March 2017
The Dark Side
Well, today I turned to the Dark Side and went twitching. My British list was standing at 327 and I feel that to improve on that I will have to make more of an effort, even though I am not a big fan of birding by numbers. Today I headed to York in search of the Pine Bunting that has been there for the last month.
When I arrived there was only one other birder there and when I was talking to him, he told me that he had been three times and not seen the bird, so it wasn't looking good. After about 30 minutes the whole flock was flushed by something and headed off further up Intake Lane. So I followed with one other birder. When we arrived at the other field the bird had been seen in, there was already one birder standing in the middle of the field scanning all the Buntings and Finches.
After about five minutes he shouts "There it is" and low and behold there, sat in a little bush, on the opposite side of the field was the Pine Bunting, who hoo number 328 in the bag! We moved further across the field to get unobscured views, as it sat there for 3 or 4 minutes before doing a disappearing act again. It turned out that the birder that was already standing in the field was the actual finder of the bird. So I picked a good day to go down for it, having his local knowledge of the bird on hand!
When I arrived there was only one other birder there and when I was talking to him, he told me that he had been three times and not seen the bird, so it wasn't looking good. After about 30 minutes the whole flock was flushed by something and headed off further up Intake Lane. So I followed with one other birder. When we arrived at the other field the bird had been seen in, there was already one birder standing in the middle of the field scanning all the Buntings and Finches.
After about five minutes he shouts "There it is" and low and behold there, sat in a little bush, on the opposite side of the field was the Pine Bunting, who hoo number 328 in the bag! We moved further across the field to get unobscured views, as it sat there for 3 or 4 minutes before doing a disappearing act again. It turned out that the birder that was already standing in the field was the actual finder of the bird. So I picked a good day to go down for it, having his local knowledge of the bird on hand!
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