Iceland

I had a ride out to the coast this morning in extremely cold conditions. It was a weird kind of frost-the roads were bone dry, the trees were covered in heavy white frost crystals and the temperature gauge said -10.

First stop was Spurn-I was hoping for some waders feeding in the fields at high tide but there were none so I had a slow drive north with a destination of Hornsea Mere.

The drive up was pretty uneventful, the odd grey partridge, a few winter thrushes and pheasants was about the best of it.

As I arrived at Hornsea Mere it warmed up quite nicely to -6 but by now the wind had got up so not quite so tropical.

The Iceland gull was quite distant at the start, there were a few distant goldeneye on a patch of unfrozen water, a barnacle goose flock on the ice and the flock of bean geese put in an appearance.

After a wait of about 2 hours the Iceland Gull finally woke from its slumber and came to bread just off the jetties.

Quite a nice bird really, it performed well for about half an hour delighting the massive crowd of 3 with some quite close views.

East Park Redpolls

I thought I would have an hour on est park this morning in the hope that the cold weather would push something unusual in.

I headed for the car park and there were quite a few birds feeding on the seed heads including 4 lesser redpolls. Also there were blue tit, great tit, robin, goldfinch and a small flock of house sparrows that were sent reeling as a sparrowhawk crashed into them.

On the water there were the usual common wildfowl plus a few distant goosander.

perhaps the most unusual birds were the single dunlin feeding along the edge of the lake wall, a lapwing and another flythrough wader that looked greenshank-ish.

Not bad for an hour in the snow.

Sanderling

I had a walk round Beacon Ponds today in almost sub-arctic temperatures.Nothing outstanding on view however sanderling, redshank, knot and turnstone were along the shoreline on the way up.

Red-breasted merganser and scaup were the best birds on the ponds also flyover peregrine and 4 whooper swans were on the new scrapes.

There was a decent flock of brent geese on long bank with a sprinkle of pale bellied birds.

I had a drive back through some of the more secluded roads hoping for a decent raptor or owl but didn't see either., just a few flocks of winter thrushes and golden plovers.

Extremely chilly so kept in the car most of the time, might get out in the morning for some snowy shots.