Have I mentioned how much I love this time of year here? I know, I know... but it really is special, and it feels like every time you go outside, something good is going to happen. And it does - the day before yesterday, it was
Whooper Swans (among many others); yesterday, a huge movement of
Pink-footed Geese (among many others); today, plenty more, and all within a couple of hours.
There are many times when birding Filey can be frustrating, for a variety of reasons, but late autumn resolutely isn't one of them, especially on Carr Naze and the Brigg. It's a very special time and place, and it's never the same. Today's highlights? A perfect, crisp first winter
Iceland Gull (pictured) cruising below me along the side of the Brigg and then quietly inland (my best ever views here of a less-than-annual species);
Red-necked Grebe,
Common Scoters, Goldeneye, Eider, lots of
Red-throated Divers, Purple Sandpipers and no fewer than five
Great Northern Divers (four in the bay, one south); big skeins of
Pink-feet on the move up in the clouds;
Fieldfares and
Starlings arriving in off the sea, low over the waves; and a
Merlin, also in off, high up in the ether and eventually over land.
All in a very small, very beautiful area, just a few minutes from my front door. Reasons to be cheerful.
Starlings arriving from Scandinavia....
... and very tired Fieldfares doing likewise
One of five Great Northern Divers
More Starlings arriving, with a Red-necked Grebe looking on
.... and a Merlin arriving, initially as a distant dot, from who knows where
