Missed Opportunities

The last few days have been a series of near misses.

Last week I went looking for waxwings on a track near Killingworth and, for the second time this winter, found that I had arrived a day too late and the main flock and all the berries had disappeared.  So I decided to make a call at Gosforth Park where a bittern has been appearing.  

I managed to guess which hide it would be near and there were four of us waiting for it to poke its nose pout from the reeds.  Unfortunately it had decided not to do so until we had all disappeared, which one by one we duly did.  The only other noteworthy thing I saw was a little egret on the scrape

On Monday I took a trio to venue I hadn't previously heard of - Pow Hill Country Park near Derwent Water as there had been some crossbills sighted.  In fact there wasn't much doing apart from one female according to a twitcher, so I contented myself with some experimental photography of some mallards on the lake a couple of hundred yards away to compare different modes on the new camera. This was the declared winner:

Mallards

It was taken in bird mode.  The runner up in automatic mode was also perfectly acceptable, unlike the P mode which seems to over expose considerably.  I must be doing something wrong.

There was an area near the car park where woodland birds seemed to gather so I decided to check it out.  Prospects were initially dimmed by a bloke in a high vis jacket and leading two dogs plus wife, who decided to walk straight through the area I was surveying. 

When I went back a bit later something interesting happened.  Another family man turned up and starting stretching his hand out and the wee birds clearly knew he was offering bird food. Sure enough he soon had coal tits and chaffinches eating from his hand.  I know this can take place but had never seen it before.  It also became obvious that there was bird food on some of the old tree trunks in the same clearing and all the birds seemed to have little fear of people.

In terms of sightings, it was another period where my own garden produced more than my trips out.  Having not been seen for some time, both nuthatch and woodpecker turned up in the space of the couple of days.

I mentioned last time that a blue tit was feeding on the mahonia bush.  This has continued and early one morning I noticed a bird that wasn't a blue tit doing the same, though often in the depths of the bush.  I eventually caught a glimpse of a reddish head and thought it must be a redpoll.  On closer inspection though it proved to be an overwintering female blackcap, as had happened to or three years back.  I wonder if it was the same bird...

Female Blackcap