Great Grey Shrike

Its been a very long time since my last view of a Great Grey Shrike, so when I got the message that a Great Grey was in the forest just down the road from where I live, I just had to take a look.

I was the first on the seen at around 8.00am and the bird was not showing. After 30 minutes of searching I eventually found it sat on top of a small bush looking as majestic as ever. I just love shrikes, and to get a Great Grey on my local patch, well that's just extra special.

Scarborough Harbour

Iceland Gull

Purple Sandpiper

Long-tailed Duck

Great Northern Diver

Great Crested Grebe

Long-tailed Duck

Shag

Herring Gull

Great Black Backed Gull

Wow! Scarborough Harbour is the place to be on the Yorkshire Coast this week. It all kicked off with myself stumbling upon the female Long-tailed Duck, then a Great Northern Diver appeared on the scene followed by a second winter Iceland Gull.

Also this week there has been Guillemot, Red-throated Diver, Arctic Tern and Purple Sandpiper present in or around the harbour area, and who knows what might turn up next. With the presence of the Pied Wheatear down the coast at Reighton Sands there has also been a large number of birders visiting the harbour to cash in on the above visitors. For more info on what is around in the Scarborough area visit - www.scarboroughbirding.co.uk.

Pied Wheatear - Part II

Another trip to see the Pied Wheatear! The bird had moved off the main caravan park area and dropped down over the cliff edge in to some decent habitat (more natural than sat on a caravan or the road). However the bird was keeping its distance for quite sometime before it eventually appeared close. Very windy and dull conditions, but you have to go with what you are given on the day. A cracking little bird, very flighty, but eventually obliging.

Pied Wheatear - Part I

What a day! Started off with the Great Northern Diver in Scarborough Harbour, then got a Long Eared Owl at Bempton followed by 5 Bean Geese and 4 White Fronted Geese at Buckton and then if that wasn't enough, I got a call from Steve Wignall telling me that there was a Pied Wheatear at Reighton Sands.

At the time of the call I was back down at Scarborough Harbour looking for an Iceland Gull that had been reported, but had no joy so I dashed up to Reighton Sands to get the Pied Wheatear. Daylight was fading and when I arrived at Reighton it was 3.20pm so I was on a hot pursuit to nail the bird. As you can see from above I managed to get some shots, but the light was very bad. If the weather improves and the Wheatear sticks around, I might try and go back, to see if I can get some better images.

Great Northern Diver

Its been along time coming!! Out of the four species of diver in Britain and Europe I have only managed to photograph Red-throated Diver and Black-throated Diver, so when I heard that a Great Northern Diver was reported in my local harbour, I just had to get down there and hope to see if I could get some decent images.

The weather conditions were quite grim, grey sky, slightly foggy and a slight drizzle and to top things off the bird had left the harbour and was now fishing in the middle of the South Bay. So I did what a wildlife photographer had to do and just wait, hope and pray that the Diver would eventually get close for a decent picture.

After getting very cold and quite damp I noticed that the Great Northern Diver was slowly making its way back towards the harbour and after about another 10 minutes I could not believe my luck, there it was just 5 feet in front of my lens and the rest is just history - bring on the White-billed!

Long-tailed Duck

Autumn is my favourite time of year for me, when the weather changes and we start to get the cold fresh weather fronts that take us in to the Winter months. Its also the time of year for me to start patrolling around Scarborough Harbour looking to find something that might have been blown off course or may be taking shelter from the bad weather. So I was very happy when I found the above female winter Long-tailed Duck feeding in the main Harbour area.