The Solway revisited ... winter meets spring ...

 In lovely spring sunshine today - once the morning mist had lifted Chiffchaffs were singing everywhere ...

Yet thousands of Barnacle and Pink-footed Geese were in the air ...

... landing for a time on the saltmarsh before little groups headed north across the water ...

... by Campfield Scrape some closer Pinkfeet grazed ...

... while Shelducks and Wigeon occupied the pool ...

... a Little Egret looked lovely in the hazy sun ...

Over the high tide in the calm conditions there was little movement into the estuary ... five Red-breasted Mergansers and six Pintail were about the best there was on offer ... two Wheatears gave more of a hint of spring and the ever present Tree Sparrows were prospecting the barns ...

Geltsdale and the North Pennines spring into life ... at last ...

 It was very welcome news when we were told that we could resume survey work under the auspices of the BTO and RSPB ... both these bodies had closed down monitoring ... so how nice to be doing WeBS counts and raptor monitoring once again and feeling that travelling anywhere at all for these purposes was legitimate ... 

This post is the first for 2021 that relates to observations outside of what can be seen from my house ... Ritson Graham ( The Border Naturalist ) famously said that there is no such thing as spring in the North Pennines ... well, he should have been here this week listening to Skylarks singing in the sunshine at 450m on Byers Pike ...

Golden Plovers were still in quite large flocks on the middle ground ... circling round and round ...

... and giving lovely views as they passed overhead time and again ...

Lapwings very clearly on territory on the lower parts of the fells and performing their extravagant displays ...

On Stagsike Meadow RSPB Geltsdale the fence posts were once again occupied by singing birds ... this fine male Reed Bunting unperturbed by passers-by ...

Goldeneys were still on Tindale Tarn in fair numbers while other duck species were now becoming scarce ... 

... and a pair of Common Gulls looked poised to claim a nest site ...

Redwing showing characteristics of Icelandic Redwing

A flock of about 200 Starlings were feeding in a field at Hallbankgate, North Cumbria on 4th March.  A little further away at around 150m range some Fieldfares and Redwings moved nervously as they fed on the short grazed turf. One of the Redwings was strikingly more heavily marked on the breast with dense dark streaks which merged to form large dark patches in parts -

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There is a brief view of one of the other Redwings behind, showing the much paler overall look and the less heavily streaked breast. 

 This shows one of the paler birds -

   

 Video grabs show the features better.   The putative Icelandic bird Turdus iliacus coburni  shows these features - 

 Darker mantle colour

 More ochre coulour of supercilium 

 More heavily marked under-tail coverts

 Rusty brown legs

In contrast the other Redwings had - 

 Paler mantles with a grey cast

 Whiter supercilia 

 Cleaner under-tail coverts 

 Pale straw coloured legs