Kettleness today

There was almost no wind first thing so I forewent the seawatching and searched for small birds all morning. As the wind began to get up it became clear that it had gone around to the SW but it didn't stir much vismig action.

Plenty of species were found and much of local interest, best being Great Spotted Woodpecker calling from the Pheasant Wood. I briefly heard Jay a couple of times, perhaps not quite well enough to confirm the record. 12 Twite were in the field behind the post box, none of these carried a colour ring so they were not Halifax / Huddersfield birds most probably.

Twite and Starlings

Fieldfare, 5; Brambling, 3 or more; Redpoll sp, 2; Siskin, 14; Reed Bunting, 2; Blackbird, 54 were the species of most interest.

Of passing interest is a weird and wonderful story in the Whitby Gazette today about school children finding an albatross feather in the car park of Whitby Leisure Centre. There is a photograph of said feather and identification seems to be based purely on size - the length of the feather being 71cm and the diameter of the quill being 3cm (this last figure must be a mistake - 3mm maybe?) (Sorry no link to the story on the paper's website.) Now it is true that not many birds could have a primary this long and I'm no expert on feathers but why should this lead to the feather being from an albatross? Bearing in mind the wonderful zoo at Flamingo Land is not a million miles away and the feather was found in the car park ..... I'm not sure what species are kept at Flamingo Land but I'll investigate. The story ends by mentioning JB's Richard's Pipit from earlier this month calling it both rare and common from one paragraph to the next, oh dear!