Some days you make plans and they go wrong and other days they go to plan, this was one of those good days. Almost everything we planned to go to see was seen, apart from White Fronted Geese near Scaling Dam etc, so a good day was had by myself, Steve B and Chris B who drove. An early start around 6-30am had us heading along the M62- A1- A19 reaching South Gare near Redcar, North Yorkshire at 8-30am on a gloomy January morning, it was cold but not too windy. A Great Northern Diver was seen close into the South Gare breakwater then a large flock of Twite were seen numbering 60+, good start to the day. We had a walk to the end of the breakwater seeing a couple of seals, Shag and two Guillemots. As we searched the sandy, vegetated area a flock of around 30 Snow Bunting, including two cracking males, began flying about. We met a local birder who told us where to look for the Lapland Bunting that had been in the area for a few days. It did not take us very long to locate the bird as it sat on the breakwater along with Linnets and Skylarks. We again watched it a bit closer from the breakwater as it fed on the ground and showed quite well. The backdrop of the various industrial buildings, steel plants against a gloomy sky gave the whole area an eerie feel about it.
Next stop was on the front at Redcar searching for Velvet Scoter and Long Tailed Ducks, without success, but we managed Common Scoter, Red Throated Diver and Sanderling all seen in tricky tidal conditions. We headed along to Scaling Dam area hoping to connect with White Fronted Geese that had been seen the day before. After a good search around we gave up and headed for Scarborough hoping to see another Great Northern Diver that had been seen in the harbour. We saw around ten Purple Sandpipers but no diver, Steve and Chris had some chips for lunch. A few Fulmars were seen sat on the cliffs. The Holbeck area of Scarborough, has always had a few Mediterranean Gulls present in the winter months but, as we got there none could be seen. As a few food items were revealed six Mediterranean Gulls arrived and showed really well.
We headed for Forge Valley near Hackness and enjoyed close views of the Willow Tits that feed on the bird tables along with various tits, finches and a very noisy Nuthatch. Our last call of the day was to a place that two of us have never visited before, Castle Howard, to hopefully see a Red Necked Grebe that has been present for a while. It was looking a bit gloomy as we located The Great Lake and hundreds of Black Headed Gulls that had arrived to roost there. It looked like a snow blizzard on the water with the amount of gulls on the water. As we saw the magnificent Castle Howard house on the hill Chris located the Red Necked Grebe fairly close in, we enjoyed good views of the bird. A few Mandarin Ducks were also seen distantly under the trees. All in all a very good day`s birding trip, we headed for home reaching a damp Rochdale by 6pm.
