OUCH!

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Great Northern Diver (or Common Loon) in evening sun at Brixham Marina

AN ATTEMPT TO PHOTOGRAPH THE SHOWY YELLOW-BILLED LOON at Brixham Harbour in Devon failed, Elvis having 'left the building'. Another product of the recent storms it presumably moved on once the sea calmed and it had fed up for a couple of weeks. Even the Great Northern Divers were on their way out of the harbour too, with only a couple left in the marina in the evening and another two juveniles on the sea off the breakwater. There had been around 10 Great Northerns in the morning plus two Black-throated Divers, a Black Guillemot and an Iceland Gull. The previous day's estimate was double this figure. Brixham harbour has seen previous invasions, it was used by US marines in Operation Overload - the 1944 D-Day landings in World War 2. Around 20 Purple Sandpipers were resting on the old jetty near the harbour mouth, a Slavonian Grebe was off Berry Head, a couple of gannets followed fishing boats in Tor Bay and the tamest Ruddy Turnstones I have ever seen were trying to steal bait from the fishermen's boxes. Also around the harbour were a Common Raven and several Grey Seals. As the sun dipped below the hills behind the town, so did I and the long journey home began.

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The same bird a few minutes later against the sun - it is amazing how different they can look!

QUIET RIVERBANK

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The Ribble at Ribchester - waving goodbye to blue skies and Altocumulus clouds for the next week or so.

THE RIBBLE WAS QUIET AT RIBCHESTER TODAY with generally few birds around and nothing of any real interest. Three Goosanders and three Common Oystercatchers were disturbed by a couple of canoeists that paddled slowly downstream flushing every single waterbird as they went, I hope this hobby does not catch on here! There were also three Northern Lapwings at the school bend and I heard a kingfisher downstream from the Boat House. A Common Buzzard floated slowly across the valley, right over the village and a lone Fieldfare was competing for hawthorn berries with blackbirds in the lane next to the tennis courts. A Grey Wagtail brightened up the dairy farm and there were also Meadow Pipit and Pied Wagtail here. I didn't manage to find a tree sparrow today or a Reed Bunting and many of the hedges have been manicured recently to match the green concrete that surrounds them. There were even fewer birds in the early afternoon with a Little Grebe and a sparrowhawk of note but the best sighting of the day was from the spare room window - a flock of c.75 Pink-footed Geese west over the village, calling, on their way to the coast.

WINTER SOLSTICE IVORY

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Ivory Gull incoming!

THE BIGGEST INFLUX OF IVORY GULLS TO THE NORTH SEA IN MY LIFETIME included one at Patrington Haven, just upstream along the Humber shore from Spurn Point in East Yorkshire. Turned up by a local birder doing his WEBS count, it was first found feeding on dead fish by the pumping station. It is ironic that the huge recent winter storm surge, which brought it here, also provided some food for it in the form of freshwater fish killed by the inundation of the Winestead drain by seawater. Birders have since topped up this supply of course!

The Ivory Gull was present from first light but only visited the pumping station three more times over the course of the day and each time rather fleetingly. I love birding the Humber shore, with its big skies and the mighty river itself, six miles wide at this point. Mumurations of Red Knot swirled over the silver water, many hundreds of golden plovers passed overhead and the air was filled with the calls of curlews and geese, which included c.50 Dark-bellied Brent Geese in several small flocks. At one point three Peregrines drifted east together, towards Spurn followed soon afterwards by a Merlin, zipping across the saltmarsh. However, it was the rare high Arctic gull that lit up the shortest day of the year - it is nice to think that the evenings will be a little lighter starting tomorrow!

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Ivory Gull, Patrington Haven

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Brent Geese flying along the Humber shore at Spurn

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Ivory Gull watchers at Patrington Haven

BLEAK MIDWINTER PENDLE

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Farmer Richard Hartley feeds his Swaledale sheep

SNOW BUNTINGS ARE ALWAYS A DELIGHT TO SEE ON PENDLE and this morning's walk with summit regular Martin Naylor produced two including a nice male on the Downham Slope. We didn't walk as far as the second stile so there may have been more and we found a lot of droppings in the dotterel area southwest of the trig point so they have obviously been roaming widely. In fact I heard one over the top of the landslide as I was walking back down. Other birds were few today but included eight golden plovers, a Common Kestrel and several Red Grouse. It was disturbing to hear from the farmer that a recent development is that of night-time sheep poaching, for meat. The one million dogs off their leads are the least of their problems at the moment. I finished earlier than usual today as the mist rolled in from the west.