cliftonbirding: Yorkshire Coast sojourn

Headed off to Scarborough Harbour first thing to year tick the Black Necked Grebes, no sign of any at first just a couple of Shags, they are looking quite smart at the moment though, almost given up on the Grebes when one suddenly popped up behind a boat then did the usual posing, also with it being high tide there was a good roost of around 60 Purple Sandpipers on the outer Harbour wall. Next up was Filey reacquainting myself with the Holbeck Mediterranean Gulls on the way, five present this morning, as I arrived at Filey I bumped into one of the locals who informed me the Surf Scoter was still present, with it being high tide I headed off down Carr Naze hoping it would be closer in but all I found were a couple of Great Northern Divers although they were quite splendid, a couple of Scoter right off the end of the Brig were too far to positively ID but I was more inclined to think they were Common. I carried on along the coast stopping off at Flamborough, North Landing next for another try for the Richard’s Pipits, they had been relocated in the first field last Friday and what’s more there was now three, success this time it was a lovely sunny day and they performed well even coming reasonably close at one point, the path around the field was right quagmire though, I relocated to Thornwick Bay for lunch and was rewarded with a Barn Owl out hunting but no hoped for Stonechat, it’s usually a good area for them. I had planned to finish off at Hornsea Mere and with time pressing I made my way there calling in at Kirkholme Point first, I approached a group of birders already present and was asking if they had seen any of the notable species when a White Winger flew past, it was a really smart adult Iceland Gull that had joined the melee of other Gulls attending a nearby Duck feeding session or so I thought, but after studying my photos later plus a bit of feedback from other birders it turned out to be a third winter Kumlien's, so that was a bit of a bonus but as for the other stuff a load of fishermen had gone out in boats and pushed everything down to the far end, a quick scan from the point found a distant Little Gull flying about but I decided I would probably fare better on the South side, I moved round there and walked out to the second field and eventually as the fishermen started going back in the Wildfowl moved back out although the only notable I managed to find was the Red Necked Grebe.