cliftonbirding: A fine day on the East Coast

Monday, 1 April 2013

A fine day on the East Coast

Out with Mark on Sunday and although it was still a bit cold it was certainly more Spring like, we started with a quick look at Hes East where we saw the wintering Green Sandpiper and at least five Ringed Plovers but there was no sign of any Little Ringed that morning, next up was Scarborough where we soon located the Black Redstart feeding along the base of the cliffs along Marine Drive plus one of the Peregrines was terrorising the local Gulls and Fulmars, we checked out the Mere as a drake Pintail had been showing well on the Saturday but there was no sign of it although the dodgy Red Crested Pochard was present and a single Pink Footed Goose accompanied the local Greylags, on to Holbeck next but it would seem the Med Gulls have moved on now which was a shame, they would have had their full hoods now. With it being nice and sunny by this point and with good light on offer we decided to go and do a bit of photography at Bempton, all the breeding species are back in now although not in big numbers yet and we also had the bonus of a Red Kite flying along the cliff, unfortunately it turned inland before it got to where we were, after our fill of Gannets, Kittiwakes and Fulmars we moved down the coast to Barmston, the Iceland/Kumlein's Gull was still present but we didn’t fancy the mile or so walk north of the car park for it especially upon hearing the Ring Necked Duck was still on the pond at New Arram, we headed off there calling at Swine Moor en route where there was a good selection of Waders but again no Little Ringed Plovers, at New Arram the Ring Necked Duck was showing a lot better than it had when it had been at Tophill but typically kept itself towards the back of the pool, still all in all a pretty enjoyable day.