February 8 2011

After the right off that was Sunday just gone, I was only too keen to get out and about today. Cold and clear as I left the house, the car was frost free, a blessing; not having to clear frost from the car!
Just up the road though, it was a different story. Black Ice with frost over the top is a recipe for disaster and it didn’t take long to find the first accident and then another and then a bad one that had the road closed…
Eventually I arrive at Beacon Hill and it is still quiet, not too many small birds at all. A pair of Marsh Tit are seen in full courtship mode and even collecting nest material (although this then being dropped), the highlight, was again a Great Spotted Woodpecker (a mammal highlight was an Ermine Stoat, no brown at all in it's coat). Have a listen, you can hear at the end where it changes branches on which it was drumming.




 
From here down to the coast via Linton Ponds, formally an excellent place to gull watch, but now that the tip has closed there was not a gull at all in the hour that I was there. Canada Geese are still there.




And at last the coast; Cresswell was quiet, not much there (Alan was here with his very nice new shiny toy) and Druridge was not much better, although it did have a bigger variety of duck (and a county recorder and a participant of each of my next two foreign trips, Tom and Roger).