Red Squirrels

Its been a while since I last posted some photos but a reduction in workload, change in circumstances and a renewed enthusiasm has given me the kick up the backside I needed to continue posting photos and stories of wildlife in Yorkshire.
I have widened my horizons from birds to a more extended view of the natural world.
With that in mind I finally got myself up to Hawes today and the excellent red squirrel viewing site managed by Sarah and Simon Phillpott.
I had read and heard about it but when I got there it was even better than I was expecting, the set up there is fantastic, the squirrels are most obliging and the constant servicing of the feeders and general attendance by Simon to maximize the experience was first class.
As for the squirrels, there must have been at least a dozen with some of the bold individuals actually coming into the hide.
I took literally hundreds of photos and the dramatic weather only added to the day.
I would recommend a visit by anyone remotely interested in wildlife, this is a truly special place.
Simon can be contacted at Wild Dales Photography.Some of the many images below.

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Golden Plovers

I had another ride out to Spurn this afternoon and the increase in temperature was dramatic-at a balmy 7 degrees you would have thought Spring was on the way.

The ground had clearly thawed and where there was no sign of life yesterday, the grassy fields near long bank were ful of birds.

Most confiding was the lapwing but also a single dunlin, numerous curlew, fieldfare and the golden plovers were all easily observed (and photographed) from the roadside using the car as a hide.

they were all startled once when a merlin flew over but other than that the plovers were quite obliging coming as close as 20m.

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.