Garden birding day

The moor pond - a favourite spot

Small Heath - best I could do

Sad end to the day - Greenfinch RIP - aged by the shape of the tail feathers as a juvenile

Two nice records today, a Treeper in the plantation and two Tree Spugs in the oak in the front garden very briefly. Both of these are second records for the garden. Also, Bullfinch x2, Herring Gull, Swallows and House Martins in very good numbers with perhaps some movement (especially a.m.) and perhaps a bit of Swift movement also. Also three Sparrowhawks, 2 chasing and playing and then a female having a go at a Kestrel. Sheep got in again via neighbours garden. Soon ushered out and they (the neighbours not the sheep) were encouraged to repair their gate.

The moor pond was good in the late afternoon with 100s of tiny frogs, Common Blue Damselfly mating, Common Darter and what was either Common or Southern Hawker, but I didn't see it well enough. Plenty of Small Heath around the pond as well, but very hard to photograph.

On the coast a visit to Sandsend for playing on the beach with the offspring - fishing for haddock with a small pink fishing net and terrorising the many promenaders with a pink and possibly lethal, 1,000 mph Frisbee. Good day, none of us drowned and no one beat us up .... Talking of drowning why do people give their kids large inflatable rings and boats to play in when there's an ebbing tide and a strong offshore wind? Don't answer that. However, the visit created another id conundrum: flock of waders way out, 27 or 28, I reckoned I could see plenty of white in the wings and tail but I have a wild imagination, I just went Blackwit, just like that. Trouble is Flamborough had no Blackwit and a fair old Whimbrel passage at about that time - moral, always take the scope.