Saturdays Trip to the Sultry South

John and I headed just over the Tyne for our Saturday jaunt taking in the delights of the Derwent, Far Pastures, Thornley, Shibdon and Lamesley.  It was quite a quiet day but with quite a few birds to see and included bumping into the ringers at Far Pasture who were accompanied by the sartorially and well coffured Nick Adams (a real nice guy amongst birders).  Some of the highlights included 2 Kingfishers, 2 Dippers, more than 60 Snipe (according to accumulative counting, but with the Auditors comments ringing in our mind that you can only count the highest amount you saw, which was 23, as they might be the same ones that moved from your first place of view, Far Pastures then to Shibdon, then they hung around whilst we dined at the Chez Fish and Chippy in Blaydon, before beating us to Lamesley). Water Rails gave us superb views at Far Pastures and amazing ones at Shibdon for over 40mins and 2 huge flocks of Lapwing, one of 500+ at Shibdon and one of 300+ at Lamesley.  We quit a bit earlier than usual as the weather was a bit depressing and John is not quite 100% yet whilst I just border on my usual 75% ably assisted by many drugs courtesy of the NHS.  As usual a few pictures from the day.

Cormorant looking for a feed a couple of miles up the Derwent.  

There was also one on the Grey Herons perch at Far Pastures

A distant view of a couple of the 22 Snipe we saw at Far Pastures

A skulking Water Rail at Far Pastures but it eventually came out to give great views

I have put so many pictures of Water Rails up lately that I looked for something slightly different so hoping this one of the magnificently displaying one at Shibdon might do

Lapwings galore from Shibdon then Lamesley

Arriving back at home I was met by this young Collared Dove which just sat there allowing me to walk right up to it.

Finally a big Congratulations goes out to Gordon for his new gig and selfishly hoping it will keep him busy and let the guys at Big Waters catch up a few.

You thought you had got away with it but I did manage a small video

of the Snipe, Water Rails and the Lapwings so get the popcorn out and

sit back and watch