A little beauty and more spring migrants

It was back up north again today with Mark starting at the Lambton Estate in Houghton le Spring where the Little Bunting we saw at Elba Park last Autumn had been refound but right on the other side of the park, with it being a different parking area to last time we managed to get ourselves lost again but we eventually stumbled upon the right road, the bird had been lost to view when we arrived but was soon relocated and gave really good views as it made its way along the banks of a little stream, it is looking very smart now and was obviously doing a circuit, we watched it do this several times but it became increasingly more flighty as the wind strengthened late morning. We then headed back down to Teesside and went straight to Saltholme as Mark wanted to see the Lesser Scaup that was still present, it was on the Allotment Pools today and a bit more distant than last week but we had good scope views, no sign of the Arctic Tern seen earlier though, we then pottered around the rest of the reserve and despite the really strong wind we picked up a few more Spring migrants including all the Hirundines plus Yellow and White Wagtails. We ended the day with look down the Zinc Works Road where we came across a group of birders watching a Jack Snipe close to the road, we stayed with it for a while hoping it might come out into the open but it just sat tight.

Bold as brass

kept itself hunkered down