Beautiful Geltsdale ... in sunshine ... Black Grouse, Woodcock, Stonechat, Dipper ...

With the sun just rising and illuminating the tops of Talkin Fell and Whinny Fell, the sky was crystal clear ...

                                             ... it was time to head for Tindale Tarn ...  a pair of Ravens cronked as they flew low over the frozen slopes of White Tortie ...

... recent rains had created a dramatic rise in water level and then the temperature dropped suddenly ...

... the tarn was still in flood with neither island visible above the glassy surface ...
the ice in the wood by the screen created lovely visual effects ...

... the path was only just passable and my feet were in water as I sat on the bench and looked out across the tarn ...

... the previous day's water level was marked by a strange shelf of ice on the fence and would have covered the bench where I sat ...

... a female Goldeneye was diving repeatedly ...

... and its progress under water could be tracked by the disturbance on the otherwise flat surface ...

... a Mute Swan was upending in the shallows by the reed bed ...

... while out in the middle Tufted Ducks and Coot behaved in a much more relaxed way ...

... as the blue sky and the sunlit Tarn Rigg reflected beautifully on the water ...

... a Dipper flopped into the shallows of the south side of the tarn among the feeding Mallard and Teal and surfaced occasionally before disappearing among the vegetation ...

... a female Black Grouse fed among the tree tubes in Bruthwaite ...

... even in the mid-day sun Stagsike remained completely shaded ...

... and past Stagsike a female Stonechat perched briefly ...

... the low winter sun reached just one corned of a mown field at Howgill and provided feeding opportunities in the thawed ground for a group of thrushes ...

... an uncharacteristically sociable Mistle Thrush fed peacably by Blackbirds and a few Filedfares ...

... further along the Gairs Track a Woodcock burst out of the dead bracken, jinking as it went and headed off across the quarry ...

... Grey Herons were constantly on the move as they searched the frozed terrain for food but stood for short periods of time before moving on ...

... by the Hare Beck a pair of Stonechats perched on patches of rushes ...

... and then on mole hills ...

... a male Kestrel perched distantly, looking positively rufous, illuminated by the setting sun ...

... and that final glow made its mark on the top of Cold Fell as the rest of the landscape fell into near-darkness ...

... a single Starling left it late to go to roost as it perched on wires at Forest Head, looking this way and that as Starlings are wont to do ...

Birding at Geltsdale in the murk ... keeping expectations within limits ...

With every hour of daylight feeling like a precious gift in these peri-solstice days I ventured out towards Tindale Tarn ... the cloud-base was only just above the tarn ... and not improving as the sun would be already on its way down from its winter high ...

Before the recent freeze Stagsike Meadow had held good numbers of Lapwing with several hundred  present on many days but with frozen ground the lack of feeding opportunities had forced them to go elsewhere ...

There were Wigeon at the west end and along the south east side a group of five Goldeneye dived among the waves of the choppy grey waters ...

... only one was a male ...

... looking smart , as always ...

... the unexpectedly missing bridge forced a detour down the Tarn Beck in search of a safe crossing point as a Dipper flew off downstream giving that lovely imperative call ...  a Buzzard called from somewhere in the mist, provoking a tirade of alarming from a Kestrel ... such is the nature of birding in these conditions when the sounds give away more than the sights of the activities and movements of the birds ...

... the skyline to the south of the tarn cleared briefly and a flock of mainly Fieldfares with a few Redwings burst out and perched nervously near the top of a beech tree ...

... mainly just grey silhouettes but quite evocative nonetheless ...

... as the mist closed in again the southern shore of the tarn could be seen no longer ...

... so back to birding by ear as I walked past Stagsike Meadow where the calls of Lapwings filtered in from invisible parts and suddenly the raucous calls of a flock of Canada Geese as they rose from the rushy pools as they disappeared off into the gloom ...

... from a starting point with low expectations I headed home with a sense of having taken in quite a rewarding mix of sights and sounds ...

Druridge Bay ... birding in the sunshine ... Red-necked Grebe, Long-tailed Duck and a Shrike to round off the day ...

At QE 11 Country Park a Red-necked Grebe in an interesting plumage state was cruising around while hundreds of school children took part in a cross country run around the periphery of the lake ...

... moulting out of juvenile into first-winter plumage, the neck showed significant red tones while the ear coverts had the dark stripes characteristic of juvenile grebes ...

... that lovely yellow bill shone out even in the murky December light ...

... it seems that this location is one where feeding the birds - Swans, Ducks, Gulls - is still permitted ... so, quite a nice spot to get a good look at some gulls ...

... among the Herring Gulls was this nice Scandinavian Herring Gull  Larus argentatus argentatus 

... with a mantle significantly darker than the nearby more southerly Herring Gulls  Larus argentatus argenteus and quite significant head and neck streaking ...

... the P10 pattern is visible on the far side wing and reveals a large white mirror, narrow sub-terminal black band and small white tip typical of birds of this race ...

... the small dark gonydeal spot on the lower mandible is probably indicative of this being a fourth-winter bird ...

... going on from here and approaching Cresswell Pond a large flock of Pink-footed Geese were in a field behind the cafe ...

... they were on the move and slowly drifted off west while further skeins came in-off the sea ...

Linton Lakes had some gulls also and this individual was intriguing ...

... the bill was dark with a pale tip - reminiscent of a first-winter Great Black-backed Gull - and was small and short ... the eye was pale, consistent with a second or third -winter Herring Gull and the brown in the wing coverts and tertials also fitted in with that age ... the head shape was rather more rounded than a typical Herring Gull and the bird looked small for a Herring Gull which is what it presumably was ... fascinating, but time to move on ...

Cresswell Pond had some pristine male Red-breasted Mergansers ...

... and Lapwings looked lovely in the sunshine ...

... and the juvenile / first-winter birds showing nice pale fringes to the mantle and scapular feathers giving a subtly scalloped appearance ...

In the ground by the sand dunes a good size flock of Goldfinches and Twite fed on the seeds of tall plants ...

... the Twite showing their strongly streaked mantles and warm buff / brown unstriated throats ...

On East Chevington Lake a female Long-tailed Duck was a nice surprise but its erratic and frequent diving made the long range viewing tricky and phone-scoping nigh-on impossible as my best result shows ...

In failing light we scanned the dark bare-twigged bushes at Prestwick Carr and amazingly found a Great Grey Shrike that had been seen intermittently there in recent weeks ...

... it dropped into the long vegetation and then returned to another high perch ...

... before finally going presumably to roost ... 

Golden Eagle - reinforcing the S Scotland population ... Dr Cat Barlow and the Elephant in the Room

An interesting evening ... in more ways than one ! ... heading into the dark recesses of North Cumbria to hear about the Golden Eagle Project ... maybe in the back room of some unknown village pub - we all knew the score ( or thought we did ) ...

... but there we were suddenly thrust into the bright lights ... a never ending sea of tables full of diners ... a noise level to match any crowded bar and with temperatures long forgotten about ...

... it was more Las Vagas than Village Pub ...

Cat Barlow started telling us about the project ... and in impressively confident style ...

With £1.3 million of Lottery funding and some ( luckily already banked ) EU cash this is a big deal ... it has some impressive backing from worthy bodies like the RSPB , Scottish Natural Heritage and the Forestry Commission Scotland.  And also from some rather worrying bodies like the British Association for Shooting and Conservation and the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust ( where the use of the word 'Conservation ' has a rather different meaning ! ).

There are also some very impressive people associated with the project - Roy Dennis as we all know  has been at the forefront of reintroduction schemes of White-tailed Eagles and more ...
... I was interested to see Stephen Murphy's name up there ... I had great respect for him when he came to the latter stages of some Hen Harrier nest sites that we had been wardening in order to fit satellite transmitters ... but then there was all the trouble about withheld data in association with Natural England and so I think ... Hmmm ...

Duncan Orr-Ewing is in there too ... he was good at the Hen Harrier Day in central Scotland.

We were shown several charts and one was a bar chart representing the perceived threats to the introduced Golden Eagles ... there was brief mention by Cat of one of the mid-height bars but one bar stood out above all the others - that of PERSECUTION - and that got no mention at all.

We were shown a map of the area where birds would be introduced ...

... anyone who has followed reports of illegal raptor persecution ( notably on RPUK which comes top of my blog list ) will be very familiar with those two hot spots for raptor persecution - the Lowther |Hills and the Lammermuir Hills ... the proposed site for the Golden Eagle releases lies right between these two Black Holes ...

... so how much of a good idea is this while illegal killing of many species of raptor including Golden Eagles continues unabated ?

Certainly Raptor Persecution UK has serious reservations about the project for this very reason and Dr Ruth Tingay the highly respected academic and raptor fieldworker is the voice of RPUK.

It would be wonderful to see Golden Eagles thriving in the south of Scotland and wonderful also if this area were to become a place known for its wildlife and be valued for that as a tourist destination.

Cat Barlow was a redoubtable and impressive speaker but is that confident dismissal of the threats that these young Golden Eagles will face one that is well placed ?