Winters not finished yet

Its that awkward interim period while waiting for Spring to get going and me and Mark were not sure what to do today then with an unexpected bright start to the day we decided to head up to Wykeham to try for the Goshawks again, success this time we had a couple of birds displaying mid morning but they were very distant, right over the other side of the valley, we later took a tour of the forest area but only managed another brief sighting, Buzzards were performing well though with eight up in the air together at one point, we had also hoped to find some Crossbills but we didn't, they seem to be thin on the ground this Winter. After lunch we dropped into Scarborough but a rather heavy shower kept us in the car so we didn’t see much then with news that the Caspian Gull found yesterday at Flamborough was showing we headed off there, it would seem that it was an erroneous report though, we bumped into some of the local birders scanning through the Gulls and they told us the bird had not been seen today and they had been watching the area at the time it was reported, we joined them scanning the Gulls for a while but nothing was picked out. We went back to Filey but it had become quite windy on the cliffs, a bit bleak to say the least and a quick scan of the Bay revealed nothing so we soon moved to the Dams which was also very quiet. We headed for home and were surprised to find a light covering of snow inland then a busy A64 prompted us to detour via Strensall, the Common looking very surreal in the late evening light with the ghostly form of a Barn Owl out hunting.

six Buzzards and a Crow

a Wintry Strensall Common