Sunday 13 November 2016

Hanging by the pool

After our fossil fun at Staithes, which was rudely interrupted by a fast rising tide, we headed home. Stopping in Pickering to get Sol a drink I happened to notice a flock of c50 birds coming past. Waxwings!

They circled round behind some trees and appeared to land. We shot after them and found ourselves in the local swimming pool car park. Now, where had they gone? After a few minutes I spotted the bohemian minxes sitting in the top of a large Sycamore behind some bungalows.

77ish of the 110+ flock. I couldn't fit the rest into the view!

From there, they were dropping down into some berry-laden Rowans behind the swimming pool. I headed round the back of the pool with my bins and camera and suddenly realised this might not look too good to the bikini-clad folk of Pickering enjoying a Sunday afternoon swim. Fortunately, it appeared that the pool was closed, so I didn't get thrown out of the grounds by outraged locals. The Waxwings were trilling away in the top of the large tree and occasionally sallying after passing insects. Then, enmasse they dropped down into the Rowans and began stuffing their faces. Greedy gits. Sadly the light was dreary as the cloud had cruised over, so my photos were, as usual, pretty poor. However, it was nice to spend a bit of time with these endearing birds.




Oh, and I have just realised this is my 500th post on this blog.



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