Scandi visitors abound.....

A day birding today with Dave around some local sites,resulted in the majority of sightings comprising of our winter visiting species from Fenno-Scandia and further east.Our first port of call was to pay the superb juvenile Rough-legged Buzzard a visit and today it showed slightly further away than on previous visits,but thankfully was seen to catch 2 voles while we watched it.Other goodies seen while watching this ghostly buteo included a couple of juv. Marsh Harrier hunting along the adjacent Read's Island,also here was a juv. Peregrine watched loafing on one of the floodbanks and after hearing that distinct bell-like trilling call,6 Waxwing were watched flying west overhead.After this excellent start we headed to Barton and walked around all the areas to the west of the Humber bridge and also around Water's edge,with the best birds being another 4 Waxwings which were watched eventually flying north over the river heading for the home county,after several changes in direction.Other interesting sightings here included an abundance of winter thrushes,with Redwing being commoner than Fieldfare,with at least 250 being counted and were really nice to see in such good numbers feasting on the large crop of hawthorn berries.Also seen were 2 Treecreeper,3 Goldcrest,8 Siskin and 50 Pink-footed Geese which were watched flying west.The final place we visited was the local patch at Worlaby and the best sightings here were the continued prescence of the wintering Short-eared Owls with 7 being seen today and they where flushed by a shooting party and all thankfully escaped unscathed,a little shaken no doubt.It was good to see that some of the S.e.O's are surviving after the harsh weather conditions we have been experiencing,but they are designed to withstand these conditions and are made of tough stuff!.A very enjoyable day out in some nice bright weather conditions.