The Big Dip...

A daft decision to twitch the reported Eastern-crowned Warbler in County Durham with two other masochists resulted in us and 300 plus others not seeing the bird.The only birds we managed in the warblers temporary home included a single Tree Pipit and 5 Lesser Redpoll,hardly compensation for not seeing this cracking eastern vagrant!Thankfully there was a good bird seen on the way home and it was a superb drake Blue-winged Teal at Port Clarence Pool near Middlesborough.The bird was watched with large numbers of it's commoner cousins,Wigeon,Teal,Shoveler and Gadwall,feeding most of the time,in typical dabbling duck fashion,with it's head under the water,but occasionly we saw the smart,blue-grey head and white crescents on the face,being very distinctive at long range and making for a very attractive species.This was my first adult drake.Other birds observed in this area included a juv. male Peregrine which spent all of the time we observed it chasing the local corvids,putting on an excellent display of aerobatics with 2 Little Egret being seen also.