cliftonbirding: Teesside again

Sunday, 8 January 2017

Teesside again

I decided on Teesside again today and first port of call was the Sainsbury’s in Middlesborough where up to 150 Waxwings were sat atop a tree in the car park, next up was Dorman’s Pool but there was no sign of yesterdays Water Pipits this morning and after failing to locate any of the recent rarer Geese on Cowpen Marsh I carried on to Hartlepool, Ward Jackson Park was first for the Ring Necked Parakeets then I went on to the waste ground South of the Cemeteries to try for the Shore Lark, bumped into Darren, John, Richard and Mike from Leeds there and had a bit of a catch up but despite an extensive search there was no sign of the Lark today, they informed me they had seen Snow Buntings at the De Brus Tunnel end so I headed up there, unfortunately there were a load of bikers bombing around so that put paid to that. The Fish Quay was very quiet so I moved round the corner to look up the channel, Red Throated Diver, Eider and a Razorbill were in the channel and a few large Gulls flying around included a juv Glaucous which I presume was the bird seen at the Newburn Bridge area the last couple of days, Jackson’s Landing only had three Red Breasted Mergansers on offer and the usual Med Gull was at Newburn Bridge. It was a pleasant stroll out to Seaton Snook on a nice sunny afternoon and the Twite posed superbly, a small group of Pinkfeet were on Seaton Common as I headed back along the road, I gave the Tundra Bean and White Fronted Geese another go, they had been reported earlier but directions to where they were showing were a bit vague and I failed to pin them down, I ended up back at Dorman’s Pool, still no sign of any Water Pipits but a Short Eared Owl out hunting was a nice end to the day.