A quickly arranged trip up to see the Penduline Tit`s at Saltholme Pools, Middlesbrough on Easter Sunday ended with us being disappointed! Four of us met at 6am (with the the clocks going forward it was 5am really) in Newhey and with a plan to get back early, surely it was just a question of going up to see the birds and do a bit of general birding. Well, that did not happen. We reached the dried up pond, facing the fire station, with the wind blowing everything about, including us, with only another 4 birders for on site. After around an hour with a Chiff-Chaff for company, we decided to go to Hartlepool Headland. Nothing on the sea but a few Purple Sandpipers, Eider and Turnstone made up for that. After a pleasant stroll around the headland and reliving some of the great birds we have seen in the area we called in at the Jewish Cemetery in Hartlepool and saw a couple of Shore Lark in flight only and my first Ringed Plover of the year. This area will soon be being built on, so we said goodbye to a very productive migration area!  We returned to Saltholme Pools, the news, off course, was that the 2 Penduline Tits showed around 9-30am, it was now 10-15am. We thought they had been blown away.

  Another hour spent  waiting for them to show was brightened up by meeting Nigel from York. He told us that they could be fairly difficult to see, yes they were okay! We called in at North Gare to catch up with some Wheatear that had been reported earlier, you guessed it, we didn`t see any.

   We headed south and called in to a churchyard that had  lots of wild Daffodils  growing in it( I had a little nod as I was driving) We reached the final birding spot near Harewood House, Yorkshire and found out that the Penduline Tits showed quite well at 2-30pm, is was not too be!  We were soon enjoying up to 30 Red Kites in the area. What great birds they are. We reached home by 4pm a little deflated but we enjoyed the day out.

Dave Ousey.