Bees Wax

It seems I’ve done most of my birding of late on housing estates. Last Sunday I was in Seaburn with SH and DMcK. After half an hours waiting the Bee Eater- lifer, finally showed. Over the next hour we got amazing views as it perched in some trees before hawking insects over the streets and then landed on an aerial. Also whilst we were waiting a Crossbill flew over.

Last tuesday by chance I was passing the Moor Farm roundabout between Cramlington and Annitsford when 30+ Waxwings were in the dead trees on the crammy side.

Later that afternoon I went down to West Hartford just in time to see 20+ Waxwing fly over the roundabout in front of the fire station. These were probably the same birds JM had the day before which I missed by a 5 minutes. Anyway that’s another one on my WH list and another first for the site this year.

On Sunday I was out locally for a few hours with SH. The highlight of the morning were 40+ Waxwings (not on a roundabout this time) on the Beaconhill estate. They were in the trees outside the community centre and commuted between the trees and the berry bushes opposite and down the street. They also fed on the ground and visited the puddles on the centre’s flat roof. More Waxwings were later seen near the windmill site and on the Bassington Industrial estate.

It was also the first time I had been to Arcot Pond in a while and the first time I had seen the wildfowl numbers, which have been building up over the last few months. No diving duck but plenty of dabbling duck with over 60 Wigeon, too many Mallard to count and the Coot count was almost at 90! I have never seen the numbers so large here lets just hope it continues over the winter and pulls something else in.