Out for a duck

A trip up to the Dyke Neuk near Morpeth ,well 5 miles out, to listen to the wife and her dad play folk with friends was good. I was tired after a 12 hour shift but the real ale on offer soon perked me up. I drank a few and before I could " say nice pint I better have another to be sure" it had ran out .So I asked for the pump clip (don't know how to get phone photos on to the laptop) and moved on to the Dyke neuk's own ale brewed by Wylam, an old favorite of mine. As I'm working a lot at the minute some old photo's of a common but beautiful duck will have to do.   

Full house of trees

With a busy work schedule its just been garden watching for me but that hasn't been to bad. The Tree sparrows continue to increase in number and like PC wandering I've had Reed bunting and Yellowhammer in to feed. The yellowhammer a garden first.These pics taken through the kitchen window.  

Chicago beers

 Due to a new job I've not been out birding in the snow for a while, but I did come across this rather good pale ale in Tescos. It is one of many good American beers which surprised me on my trip to California last year. Any badly behaved photographers out there please note you cant walk up to this island and flush everything on it,the water is to deep.  Stick to flushing other things but don't ask me where to find them.

Snow a deer a female deer

Took a walk to Big waters through the snow, the lake was packed with Wigeon, Teal and Mallard plus 2 Goldeneye and a few Gadwall. The feeding station had the usual suspects including 2 Willow tits and lots of Moorhen. The field behind the new scrape hosted Roe deer and a distant but not well camouflaged Hare. Cormorants roosted on the dead tree that Big waters would not be the same place without.

a fishermans friend 

 

merry xmas

wildfowl wonderland

200x zoom action 

Cured at last

After a prolonged battle with the flu (despite several attempts at drowning it) I finally got out to Big Waters this morning. The lake was half frozen but still held a lot of Wigeon, some Teal and Mallard. On  the walk round we saw 2 Curlew and heard Kingfisher and Golden plover, a field half covered in Wood pigeon also had 2 Lapwing in it. The regular wintering flock of Greylag was only 35 strong and the Canada geese were 18 in number. My garden as ever was host to lots of Tree spuggies, probably about 30 all told. My feed bill is getting expensive but what can I do, they must eat.