MSQ And Worlaby Carrs......

A change of scenery today to get away from the blustery westerly and also to check out SW's geese at MSQ,saw me heading for one of my favourite reserves in the county.What a gorgeous sunny day it was today and i began my walk on the reserve with a decent flock of 18 Lesser Redpoll and a handfull of Siskin watched feeding in waterside Birch and Alders,with at least one bird looking a good candidate for a Mealy,but it flew off before i could get a really good look at it.After watching the 'Polls' i walked around to the main lake seeing the Lag flock and it's arctic visiting cousins landing on the grass fields at the back of the reserve,so i quickly made my way around the back of the reserve to see 2 'Tundra' Bean Geese and at least 11 European White-front's,feeding in amongst them and managed some good views after some perserverance,a superb spell at the moment for geese.Some fairly good numbers of Wigeon,Gadwall and Teal were watched on the main lake,dabbling around the waters edge and a cloud of Peewit flew over after being flushed by an invisible raptor.After enjoying my visit to the reserve i made my way to the local patch and amazingly got parked straight away.No real surprises were seen,but the usual star birds featured and included superb views of the Short-eared Owls,with 12 being seen today,1 adult female Hen Harrier which gave good views as it hunted around one of the decoy ponds and a nice 2nd calendar year Male Marsh Harrier gave superb views as it passed by on its journey to roost on the Humber.The only other sighting of note was a large skein of Pink feet heading toward the Humber from the Wolds just before dusk.An enjoyable day in some lovely winter sunshine.