Durham Bird Club's Castle Lake Nature Reserve

Sunday, 1 January 2012

The First Of The First

The plan today was to spend an hour in the hide then have a good walk around hoping to get the new year list off to a solid start but the weather had other ideas and it wasn't until late morning that the rain relented by which time I'd seen everything the hide had to offer.
I didn't need to head over to Low Hardwick as the Short-eared Owl's today were happily hunting the south-east corner of Castle Lake, three together at one stage.
The set-aside between Island Farm and Alan's Pool is still home to a 600 strong mixed flock including 400 Goldfinch, various numbers of Greenfinch, Tree Sparrow, Reed Bunting, Yellowhammer, 19 Corn Bunting and at least 1 (!) Linnet.

A few pictures from today;

One of the two pair of Shelduck that have already returned to Castle Lake.

Three Pintail present today including this drake.
Great Black-backed Gull's still dropping in occasionally.

Some of the Corn Bunting in their favourite tree.

Couldn't resist another Short-eared Owl photo.

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