Wow... What a days birding!

Today our plan was to revisit the stunning Yellow Rumped Warbler in Durham, Shincliffe and then on the way back head of to RSPB Saltholme.

As we arrived at Whitwell Acres (the place where the Yellow Rumped Warbler was showing) we saw lots of the birders looking through their scopes and binoculars into the bushes so we picked up the pace. As we reached the huge group of birders we saw a bird fly out of the bushes and land on top of a roof. People then said that this was it so I quickly grabbed my camera to take a few shots, after I had took a few I then decided to spend the rest of the time watching this beautiful bird. It showed on the roof for a good few mins before flying round the back of the house. The Yellow Rumped Warbler eventually flew back to the bushes it was previously in and for about 5mins it showed very well sitting at the top of a tree just above the bushes.

Yellow Rumped Warbler

 

Afterwards we decided to head of to RSPB Saltholme for an hour or two. First we stopped of at Saltholme east to look for the 2 Long Tailed Ducks, we managed to pick up the birds on the far side of the lake, although very far away they were still great to see.When we arrived in the carpark we first decided to take a look in the Phil Stead Hide. On the lake outside the hide there was Little Egret, Shoveler, Mute Swan, Coot and Shelduck. We asked a man to see if there had been any Redpolls on the feeders outside the hide he said "yes I saw a few on them about 10mins ago". We decided to move over to where the feeders were and within about 5mins we were enjoying amazing views of 2 Lesser Redpolls! Both of them kept on coming onto the feeders very regularly and staying for quite a long time at some points. We found them very entertaining as they kept pushing all the other birds of the feeders.

 

Lesser Redpolls

Little Egret

 

After we decided to have a quick walk to the Saltholme Pools Hide before going back home. Around the hide there was Lapwing, Curlew, Canada Geese, Wigeon, Shoveler and Shelduck. We stayed in the hide for a while trying to pick up anything different but we couldn't so decided to go home after an awesome days birding!