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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Keith Dickinson" data-source="post: 1641197" data-attributes="member: 10828">The ReportThe day dawned, if not bright, then early for me at 6.00am thanks to a kind neighbour slamming their car door, saved wear and tear on my alarm clock. Up and out for 7.00am and Rob picking me up for the journey to Filey, didn't get the usual jay in the garden this morning so missed out on what should have been an easy tick, the drive across to the coast turned up the normal suspects, carrion crows, rooks, feral pigeons and a large flock of greylags just east of Malton. When we got to Filey and met up with everyone, Mark, who had seen the same flock of geese and stopped to get a better look informed us that there were some Canada geese in with the greylags. Jim and Graham had been on site for a wee while, and James, Marcus, Mike, Mark and John arrived as we did, so we had the team together so it was time to head out along Carr Naze (that's the cliff the sticks out into the bay), a birder making the journey in the opposite direction told us that a snow bunting was showing right at the far end of the cliff. We made our way down there and sure enough there it was silhouetted against the early morning sun, a lifer for one of the group if I'm remembering correctly.Whilst some of the group made their way part way down the slope to try for a better view, Jim , Mike and I stayed at the top and had good views of the bird as it made it's way around us to take up station on the cliff face just out of sight below the lip. A distant flock of scoter watched by the lads on the slope failed to contain any velvets, all commons. When everybody was back on cliff top, we headed North towards the tip area to look for possible buntings and larks. As per usual with our meets the group broke up into smaller units, with people moving from one group to the other and back again. We were lucky enough to have a small flock ( 5 birds?) of snow buntings fly past, allowing me to get a good look at their plumage, my normal view of them being a white ass disappearing rapidly into the distance. A couple of female stonechats also turned up during this walk, not sure if a male was seen, as well as quite a few skylarks.At sea, several fulmar were seen, along with a single gannet, a red-throated diver (the first of 8 or 9 birds logged). As time crept on it was decided that actually walking to Scarborough wasn't a good idea and we retraced our steps to take the path to the tip, hoping to maybe see one of the lapland buntings that had been seen by one of the local birders that we met. Sadly we were disappointed, although a reed bunting did a valiant job of impersonating a lapland<img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" />.Whilst walking through Parrish Wood, Mike and I were lucky enough to witness a sparrowhawk with a starling, Mike saw the bird first and drew my attention to her as she landed on the path probably 50 yards in front of us. She was extremely nervous and kept looking left and right, eventually she started to pluck the starling, but the sound of the rest of the group making their way through the wood proved too much and she took off with her prey, not to be seen again.After leaving the wood a short walk through the housing estate brought us to the top of Church Ravine, time to visit the sea front and refuel, so a slow walk down the hill, scanning the trees for any late migrants was in order. Nothing doing though, only long tailed, blue and great tits with a handful of chaffinches. We couldn't even find a treecreeper for James's year list. Once we'd had a bite and a brew at the burger kiosk, it was on to the Brigg, ticking off knot, sanderling, purple sandpiper and turnstone on the way and adding rock pipit once we were on the Brigg proper. A great crested grebe flying South was a welcome alternative to the red throated divers. Several eider were also seen along with quite a steady stream of auks, mostly guillemots, making their way down the coast. Most of them were in very small groups of 2 or 3, but there were lots of singletons.Just before we left the Brigg a flock of geese were picked out by Jim, these were flying  towards us and as they drew nearer their identity became clear... roughly 40 pink-footed geese. We watched as they got closer and were very disappointed when they veered off to pass by the Brigg some way out to sea. It would have been a joy to have had them pass overhead, but it wasn't to be.After leaving the Brigg and making our way back to the cars, we headed off to Filey Dams, the small nature reserve a short way inland. Here we added snipe, grey heron and teal to the list, along with the most obliging kingfisher. Picked out by John when she was perched on a distant telegraph wire, the bird flew first to the reedbed and perched on the reeds for a few minutes, before heading off to the right, after we relocated to the second hide the bird was found again and this time she flew to within a few metres of the hide, alighting on a post (see Mike's shot in earlier post) where she sat for a few minutes. I spoilt things by getting out my camera, as per normal the minute it was switched on the bird decided to move away.This more or less brought our day to a close and after wishing Marcus all the best on his move to Scotland the group broke up, Jim to go owl hunting, Graham stayed in the hide, the rest of us made our way to the cars and home.Sorry this was late, meant to do it yesterday but I got in last night and fell asleep after my meal, I've not even looked at the total bird count for the day. I'll have that online tomorrow when I've got it into order.</blockquote>

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