Friday 9 November 2012

Urban Birding

It was too windy for our planned location today, so we switched to a supermarket car park. Yesterday there were reports of 115 Waxwings there. At least 50 were still present at 9.30. They showed well in good light, but wouldn't come down to the berries in the tree they favoured as a chap with a very big lens was stationed really close to their tree. We viewed from some distance away, and were able to get adequate photos. We spent half an hour or so with the birds, but when they all took off we took that as our cue and went to the Humber Bridge Park in the hope of catching up with some Bullfinches.
All photos (c) 2012 Chris Cox
Waxwing

Part of the flock
Unfortunately, the East Riding staff chose this particular day to be tweaking the willows growing around the feeding station, so there were no Bullfinches to see, or anything else of interest in the area. As small compensation one morning participant spotted a Jay, which I've never seen in the area before, but we all managed to sneak a view. We also had good views of at least 2 different Treecreepers, several family parties of Long-tailed Tits and some Goldcrests. Unfortunately in the afternoon virtually all the small birds had disappeared. We did see a couple of Long-tailed Tits, but that was it. 
About to snatch a berry
 Swallowing

However, the afternoon session started in the supermarket car park, and this time there were well over 100 birds. This was a 'lifer' for several participants. My camera decided to die at this point, so I've had to rely on Chris Cox's pictures from yesterday to illustrate the blog.

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