6th/7th March. The Piewich

For once the Met office got the weekends forecast spot on, wet on Saturday with glorious sunshine on Sunday. I had a couple of oil changes planned for the Saturday so that would keep me busy for the morning at least. Unfortunately I couldn't raise the enthusiasm to pick up the binoculars in the afternoon but did go to Morrisons and having not eaten since the previous day created this:

The Piewich

Having written Saturday off I was torn between two choices for the promised sunny Sunday, either Grigrin Farm Red Kite feeding station with bonus Black Kite or the long staying Black-throated Thrush at Newholme. The Thrush hadn't been seen since Wednesday so there was really only one choice. Arriving at Newholme (yes I foolishly chose the latter option) it became clear after around five minutes that the thrush had moved on one way or another. Feeling somewhat like a wedding guest who'd turned up on the wrong Saturday we hung around for an hour out of shear courtesy. That left us with two choices head back via Scarborough and Filey or go a bit further north and get an insurance tick in the form of the Saltholme Hooded Merganser. Once again I made the wrong choice and headed north. Now as far as birding goes this area takes some beating and has a track record that some east coast spots can only dream of, but It's such a depressing area. The subsequent no show of the Merganser didn't improve things but a couple of red-head Smew provided some compensation - but not much! Of course the very fact that I didn't see Merganser will ensure that it makes it on to category A!