Recently.

Aint been out too much in the last two or three weeks with the odd half day visits to Tynemouth, Prestwick Carr and Gosforth Park the venues.
Gosforth afforded me a few views of the Bitterns. The highlight a ten minute session with one in full view preening and looking to feed. You can only take so many pictues of even  a Bittern so decided to capture some video footage, which isn't the best, (need some practice) so here is a non moving image.

 Tynemouth on Saturday was relatively quiet. A number of birders were on the prom. below Knotts Flats scoping the River Tyne over towards South Shields looking for the Grey Phalarope which had been seen on both sides of the river on Friday but the bird had flown, as they say. Sadly the pier was closed  AGAIN and i had to settle with views of Purple Sandpipers on the Midden Rocks. Priors Park held noticable numbers of Blackbirds and Robins once more and i had the joy of a gleening single Goldcrest for a couple of minutes.
Ptestwick Carr gave me three firsts. My first Redwings of the autumn, my first ever bathing Bullfinch, it splashed about in a puddle on the bumpy road and my first Tree Sparrows at this site. They seemed to favour a raised piece of scrubby ground halfway up the horse fields on the way to the sentry boxes. Very skittish and attempts to get an image were abandoned in case they may have settled in the area. Will check it out next time i'm up there.Willow Tits very much in evidence and a couple showed well on returning from the red flag area. No SEOs .