Shortie

Well a really nice finish to the birding year with a cracking short-eared Owl hunting along side the road at Mawbray tonight. All shots take at high ISO 400-1600 so little grainy but generally for shots taken in this poor light i'm pretty happy.

 

 

A video below, best watched in HD

Last couple of days.

28th December...

Keith n i had a good look around for the geese today. 4000 Pinks in back fields at Blackdyke, nothing obvious but half a dozen Barnacles.

Geese up n down the Solway but generally just Barnacles and Pinks.
Eventually the lesser Canada goose was found back on Skinburness marsh after lunch by a couple of visiting birders but was flushed by a peregrine 10 min before we got there. Im having no luck with any of the rare geese this back end..
We Didn't really see many waders or anything out the ordinary after this.

29th December

Keith and I had a great spectacle of Waders at Grune this morning, hard to count but they were like starlings tens of thousands, maybe near 50000 waders, mix of Knot, Dunlin and Bar-tailed Godwits. Probably 700 Bar-tails. Good numbers of Curlew including a very pale bird. 600 Wigeon, smaller number of teal, Merganser and Mallard. Small Numbers of geese

Raptors just female Merlin and a Kestrel.
The waders were one of the best sights in Cumbria this year for me, almost like being at Snettisham in Norfolk.

Red Squirrel

Rach n I had a walk into knob a Gob along the river to Cockermouth Cemetary. The light was awful but a Heron showed nicely.

At the cemetary eventually the Red Squirrels showed nicely although the light was so bad getting a decent shot was ni on impossible.

Merry Christmas

Christmas day walk from the house, or should I say swim. Really needed waders.. But a nice Christmas surprise was flushing a Short-eared Owl from the small plantation between Dearham and Hawker Marsh. Also Woodcock, 30+ Lesser Redpoll no Common, Siskin, Goldcrest, Great-spotted Woodpecker, Buzzard, Fieldfare and Redwing.

Pretty quiet on the whole.

Whoopers

Well had a trip up the coast walked dog and checked a few spots for gulls n stuff. Very little anywhere really. At Black dyke the Whoopers were on good form and showing well. Checked the Barnacle Geese at Skinburness Marsh but just 4 pinks with the big numbers of Barnies. Plenty of Pinks in the air but couldnt find em on a drive around.

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYOBODY AND AS ALWAYS A MASSIVE THANKS FOR LOOKING IN FROM TIME TO TIME

Dumfries

Well first time Keith and i had been out in some time so we headed for Dumfries and Galloway and Mereshead. We arrived mid morning and checked through the geese that were present, nothing much but a leucistic Barny, Onto the Hide it was incredible to see nearly 300 Pintail and a couple of hundred Teal as well as smaller numbers of Gadwall, Wigeon and Mallard. A couple of Tufties and a Goldeneye. We moved onto the next hide checking the Geese as we went still nothing special. A Good 30-40 Chaffinch's but no Brambling. In the next hide much the same as the first but 2 Canada Geese. Back at the visitor center 6 Tree Sparrows. We moved onto loaning foot checking more of the geese that rare one eluded us thought.

On the way home via Carsethorn were a few more Barnie's and 1 Pinkfoot. On the beach loads of Waders including Whimbrel, Grey plover, Ringed Plover, Dunlin, Redshank, Turnstone and Oystercatcher. On the sea 40+ Scaup and 5 Red-breasted Merganser.
On the whole a nice day, just nice to be out n about.

Update

Ok so i'm going to update you on what Ive been doing these last couple of weeks. Well i went to Disneyland Paris with the family and what a great time we all had with amazing fun and frolics. The Christmas Atmosphere was great.

 

 

 

Anyway enough of that your not here for Disney, although if ya wanna see more there's plenty of videos on my You tube page here and loads of pics here on my facebook page ;-)

Right, anyway birding.... its crap yeah crap. We Flew to Paris via Derby and on the way a Red Kite, Cumbria lancs border. In Disney a few really common birds like House Sparrow, Black Headed Gull a Heron and Blackbirds. The best stuff though was a Chiffchaff a Grey Wagtail and after looking at pics a raptor i can only think was a Buzzard. 
Have a look its the dot on the right ;-)

So On the way back from Derby/Chesterfield the A1 produce a single Waxwing somewhere near Fairburn. then a group of 25 somewhere along the A1. Lastly a Red Kite.

So now i'm back home, Ive been to a few places. Bass lake hosted a Woodcock, GS Woodpecker and a few Jays in Powter howe woods, 16 Little Grebe and the usual ducks. Maryport had some close Porpoise. Soddy Gap had 200 Goosander, 50 Teal, 3 Goldeneye and a Pochard. Siddick ponds had a very brief Otter and a Fly bye Bittern. Finally at Workington Stumpy the Med Gull and 14 Grey Seal was it really... God i hope 2013 brings something better otherwise bring on the end of the World!!!!

Soddy and Siddick

Well i did manage to get out, firstly covering Soddy masses of geese flew over including 200 Greylags which then landed on the pond and 90+ Pink footed Geese but they continued North.
180 Goosander still with smaller numbers of Teal, Wigeon, Mallard and 3 Goldeneye.
4 Snipe dropped in. Yellowhammer, Tree Sparrow, Skylark and a Few winter Thrush's was it really.

I moved onto Siddick Ponds by which time it had started to rain AGAIN! pissing me off now, i want to go get some digiscoping practice in, bloody weather. I did do just a bit of photography. Anyway the birds were crap as usual, another flock of Pinks going north 50+, Mute Swan, Goosander, Teal and Mallard. A few Snipe and a brief glimpse of a Water Rail.
No show for Bittern, Kingfisher or Otter. Here's today's efforts at some Digiscoping..

Nowt

Well I'm sorry to say no updates = no real birding done, been a busy time at work which is nice and any days Ive had off have been filled with other stuff at home. The weathers not been great either. I'm away as of this weekend so unless i get out birding tomorrow there will no blog posts till later next week if i'm lucky... seya peeps, thanks for continuing to look in from time to time...

More Waxwings

Nice but wet morning at Soddy, I donned the Waterproofs and Wellies and had a good wader through the site., 1 Waxwing heard calling half a dozen times then found in a hedge by houses with Redwing and Fieldfare at 9am. The Thrush's all moved on but i didn't see the Waxwing go with them, although there was no more call after this so it must have gone with them.

A nice blocker got back, my first site record but the second for Soddy.
Due to the weather being so bad i never took my camera, or my scope, first time ever probably, typical really.

Loads of Ducks, Goosander, Goldeneye, Pochard, Wigeon, Mallard and Teal. The Teal then moved to the Smaller pools.

80+ Common snipe, couldnt find the anticipated Jack Snipe unfortunatly.

Plenty of Goldfinch, Long-tailed Tit, Redpoll, Siskin, Tree Sparrow, Reed Bunting, Yellowhammer and Skylark.

P.s its been a quiet week, due to work commitments, and its dark before and after work now...

 

Stumpy

Not much birding done today but i did catch u with Stumpy the Adult Winter Med Gull at Workington again.

More waxwings

Well after me chores this morning i nipped out for an hour to look for waxwings, that turned into half a day as i did find some at Marks and Spencers Car park in Workington. Once again the light was crap and it was drizzling making it again impossible to get a decent photo of the Waxwing, this was the best i could do... PLEASE let the sun come out and let me see some Waxwings..

 

I will keep trying, one day the sun will come out and ill have enough light to get a decent photo...