Will's bird blog: Drizzly day in Cleveland

Common snipe

Little egret

After last Sunday's success with some great winter scarcities, I hoped to top that today. Dad and I were taking gran back to Hartlepool. We knew that there were rarities present:Penduline tit(s) and Green-winged teal, as well as some scarce birds: Water pipit(s), Short-Eared owl, Glaucous gull and (Pale-bellied) Brent goose. There was also the chance of a flyover Bittern. However when we went to Dorman's pool a birder told us the Glaucous gull had been taken into care, this was good for the bird as it was obviously in poor health. At Dorman's pool we searched for Water pipit but didn't see any. We did see Pintail, Shelduck and Little egret. We then were slightly alarmed to find that the road to Saltholme was closed off by the police. We looked around and there were lots of police bikes and cars at the end of roads closing them off. The reason then became clear as a really big lorry drove along with a police escort carrying piping. We were about to leave when some birders asked if we had seen the Water pipits, we told them no. They told us that whilst we were waiting for the lorry to pass there were up to four Short-Eared owls hunting in the fields just out of site from where we were, we did not see them. When we went to Saltholme we looked for both the Penduline tits and the Green-winged teal but saw neither, we did get good views of 40 Barnacle geese flying past the cafe. This day of missing rare birds was starting to get ridiculous. We then went to try and see a Brent goose which was in amongst Pink-footed geese, we saw it and I was relieved that we didn't miss every bird that wanted to. We then set out to try and see some Rose-Ringed parakeets at Jackson's park, in the end we saw 12+ birds roosting in a tree and flying overhead.