Trip time

 A bit late blogging as blogger has been not working properly.

We did a visit to Tingwall for the black tern . It was distant so not great shots and will look at them tomorrow as we left the card at home while we went away.

Well, we decided we needed a few days break. So we grabbed the ferry and decided to do a proper twitch for the Long tailed Shrike.

Unfortunately, even though it's been there for weeks, it decided to depart as our ferry docked in Aberdeen. It! We headed South for a bit in the hopes it would be refound, but it wasn't so we diverted and headed East, which meant we could catch up with our good friend Nick in Norfolk. We headed to Walberswick to get some waders and we heard and briefly saw, but no photos, Zitting cisticolas 

Then we went to look for the black shouldered kite at Sea Palling. It was mega distant but we did get to see it hovering. Smart looking bird.

It just seemed like everything was determined to be distant. We did get to watch a nice kestrel hunting.

We dropped Nick back in Norwich and headed North , slowly. The A1 WAS A NIGHTMARE. We didn't get as far as we wanted, but ended up at a nice Travelodge in the old station, at Durham. Will definitely go back. What a great building, the old platform columns were just outside our door 

We then went to an old haunt, Pow Hill for some woodland birds and squirrels. We were disappointed the management have pulled up all the old squirrel stumps and put signs up saying no feeding wildlife or entry but yet they clearly aren't managing the site well as there were at least two grey squirrels in the car park!!!!! And dog poo, ( and human poo) everywhere.

It was a good stop off before heading up to Aberdeen, which took forever, so no shopping time even 

Nasty!!!

The ferry was really calm though.

The cats and chickens had missed us all . Hey hey had a first stroll round the garden.

Weather was a bit rough today but we fitted in a quick walk.