Wednesday 30th April
Been away for a few days in the lakes for my birthday, but its nice to be back.
Went up to Bassenthwaite for the day to see if we could see the Ospreys, as they werent about when we were there in march. Yes...finally we were lucky. Called to the visitors centre first as they have big screens in there where you can watch the webcams they have rigged up beside the nest they've apparently used for the last 8 years. But this year the female has decided she wants a new place...i can understand that, so they've built a new nest, but as yet they haven't been able to locate it so that they can rig up a new webcam. Anyway one of the staff told us that the ospreys can be seen (if lucky) back down the track where theres a layby overlooking bassenthwaite, as they say they are nesting somewhere in the woods to the right of the lake. So off we went and sat for a while and thought...no...just not meant to see them, but....yes they both showed up, the male and female...was definitely well worth the persistence, they are fabulous birds. At first glance and from a distance they look very similar to a buzzard. Would have liked to see them diving for food, but satisfied that we did see them after all this time.
While we were away we didnt actually see very much. We could hear lots of birds, but didnt get to see many, apart from a grey-wagtail, coal-tits, blue-tits, buzzard, mallards, greylags + chicks, siskins and chaffinch
Called into boulmer on our way home as the sun was glorious and parked up at longframlington steel, saw larks, 2 wheatear, meadow pipit, black-headed gulls, herring gulls, oyster catchers.
Cresswell 2 grey-heron, stonechats and linnets