Gloves and Glaucous

A cold morning this morning, gloves essential, mine were left at home. Never mind after an hour or so it was bright and the wind dropped and we had a pleasant wander around the Coquet Estuary, Amble Harbour and Warkworth Picnic Site and the Old Water.

As we scanned the large Gulls on the sand bar just out from the car park on the braid we noticed a 1st winter Glaucous Gull gliding in from the Harbour area and landing with a group of Great Black Backed Gulls. An excellent patch year tick, in december. 142

Glaucous Gull

The Harbour was pleasant but quiet. Common birds to photograph couldn't be resisted after a cup of tea in the car..

Turnstone

After checking the river and the Whooper Swan flock opposite, heading back to Warkworth we has a walk around the Picnic Site and the track leading down to the beach and the Old Water Pools.
We were remarking how quiet it was when a fabulous flock of about 15 Long Tailed Tits passed through, we were keen to observe as these flocks can sometimes hold interesting species..

Long Tailed Tit flock

 Now then, this often happens, we were wandering past the small pool on the opposite side of the main track from the Old Water Pools, musing about Kingfisher using these pools in wintertime. A Kingfisher flew out low from a small outlet stream and into the reedbed on this pond.
We lingered and got some great views of this superb bird, photographs however were a little trickier..

Kingfisher