No more migrants but ton up!

I'm off work this week, so once the carpet fitters had finished fitting my new carpets I went of to Druridge for an hour or three.

I was hoping ( and expecting) to see a handful of new migrants but it wasn't to be, I had to make do with a white wag, a few wheatear and some straggling winter visitors in the form of 12 whooper swans who don't quite fancy the tundra yet!

I had a good tour of the patch, the GWE hasn't been seen in the last couple of days, the resident waders are settling down, a lapwing was sitting tight and snipe and redshanks are hanging about in reasonable numbers. My only year-tick of the day was three displaying stock doves.

Camouflaged Snipe!

The whoopers were all on the big pool, twelve in total, five of which were last-years young.

I had a look on the sea, the NE wind was bitingly cold and there was very little to see, I hung out for a sarnie tern until my face froze off, out of the wind behind the dunes, it was like a summers day!

I found two goldcrests in the bushes, impossible to photograph - this pic turned out to be a bit weird!!

These lichen caught my eye, I once did a 10 week lichen course, confused the hell out of me and I have largely ignored them since!

100 stock dove