With most of the local pits frozen over the gathering on this pit looked almost like the olden days when Pochard and Tufted numbered in the high 100's. At least 110 Goldeneye today and a drake Pintail was a bonus with the 60+ Shoveler. The Smew is clearly a first-winter drake and to complete the patch sawbill year list a female Red-breasted Merganser was on the Humber. A few more waders included 6 Ringed Plovers taking the year's tally to 97 species the highest February count for a few years.
in spite of a bit of snow not been getting any photos of late but several new features on the web site
https://www.grahamcatley.com/ including new Favourite images and trip reports from Varanger 2012
https://www.grahamcatley.com/tripsabroad/varanger-june-2012
some new owls https://www.grahamcatley.com/owls
and UK trip report from the Farne islands https://www.grahamcatley.com/uk-trips/farne-islands-june-2010
Long-tailed Skua from the Varanger 2012 report
managed to get the camera on the rather fast moving deer as it bolted out of some trees but also managed to miss its legs! shame because the background was great and the deer in focus and light good -
walked the wrong way and found myself 2kms from where the Starlings dropped last night and hence missed the best of the action but to be fair there was not much real action but just a mass of birds - how many? well people suggesting 100,000 in my experience 200,000+ and would not be surprised if there are 250,000 an impressive gathering
