A miss and a hit

The long-tailed tits have continued their massed attacks on the relatively few suet balls still in the garden feeder.  I reckon the maximum number seen at the same time was eight, though things can change pretty quickly as this video shows:

Long-tailed Tits

Elsewhere my third attempt at the grey-headed lapwing at East Chevington drew  another blank.  The trouble with this bird is it doesn't keep its appointments.  Like an unreliable employee, it turns up three of four days in a row then throws a sickie and wasn't sighted at all on Friday.  All the signs were good with a healthy clutch of twitchers peering over the suspect field but an hour later all had left bar me.  All I got was a couple more distant fieldfare sightings and a suspected redwing that turned out (I think) to be a song thrush.

Fieldfare

Song Thrush?

It was bit hard to tell as the low sun was casting a lot of shadow and focusing was quite tricky.

In complete contrast to the absent lapwing the equally rare white-billed diver at Druridge Country Park  proved highly reliable.  Also one you will not find in your Book of British Birds, it has been described as the most photographed bird in Northumberland and ended up performing its stunts pretty much in front of the touristy cafe.

White-billed Diver

It's also a bird that generally does not favour fresh water lakes. 

Apparently it doesn't get on well with cormorants and I noted that the male tufted ducks were going round together in solidarity.

Tufted Ducks

New Year Bonuses

The pattern over the rest of the festive period has been for restricted sightings but with the occasional bonus prize.

I did a quickish walk around the QEII with a friend when there was very little to see in the way of ducks or waders but a single herring gull turned up among the swans at the hotel end.

Herring Gull

For a while I did wonder whether it might be a different gull but the expert opinion was 'third winter herring gull.'  So there!

I spent New Year with V&A in Crawford, driving there in pelting rain.  We didn't get out the next day but Alex got a great shot of the Northern Lights!

Aurora Borealis

I hasn't to add I didn't get a thing and it wasn't even visible to the naked eye.  But pretty good considering we weren't further North.

On the 2nd we managed a trip to Airds Moss, which looked very promising but seeing anything following the sudden temperature drop and in an almost total lack of wind was hard going.

A heron flew along the valley at one point and, thanks to Alex's supreme spotting skills, we picked out a flock of goldfinches feeding in some distant trees, although getting a decent shot of them was a different story as they hid behind the withering catkins.

He then managed to spot a good number of distant fieldfares feeding near a large collection of molehills. Again, getting at a decent view was difficult, this time as they were at considerable distance.

Goldfinch

Fieldfare

Just to prove there were more than one each:

Goldfinches

Fieldfares

This was however the first time I have seen any fieldfares for a very long time, so worthy of note. As far as I could detect, no redwing were present.

A couple of days ago I made a visit to Whittle Dene to check for a little owl but it looks to me that some of the cracks in the wall where it supposedly nests have been filled in.  

The fishing lakes were pretty clear apart from a couple of mallard, gulls and a couple of tufted ducks a very long way off.  

A little investigation up the back of the nature reserve proved fruitless.

Yesterday the snow came down heavily and there was a frenzy of birds at the feeders.  At last the long-tailed tits participated fully and there were five of them at one point attacking a nearly empty suet ball feeder.

It wasn't the best photo, but the little things don't stay still for long!