Novembers highlight must be the coming of the Waxwing, these eruptions are always something to look forward to and my home area of Newcastle-U-Lyme/Stoke-on-Trent always plays host to usually good numbers of these fantastic looking birds. This year was no exception and as always they choose the best places around the city, this year it was near festival park around the Gala Bingo and Burger King drive through!

 

The start of the month though found me gricing rather than birding, heading off to Barrow Hill in Derbyshire with the hope of photographing the GBRf and plain white 20 No 3 aka 20906 (the plain white one destined for La Farge cement works in the Hope Valley).

The 11th found me and Gemma staking out the Gala Bingo car park for the for mentioned Waxwing. On turning up I as ever was told they had just left and we spent the next 30 minutes watching the Thrushes attack the Mountain Ash berries. As charming as these birds are they are no Waxwing. Well after some wait and chatting to other birders the stars of the show appeared.
The light was rather rubbish now although a brief window of sun allowed to grab a few shots before we had to head home as feeding time for Gemma was fast approaching.

I did try again on the 16th but was met with wind and rain, although seeing them the camera stayed in the boot.

The 18th saw us heading down the M6 to see the Black Necked Grebe at Gailey we found the bird on the far side of the reservoir in good light although to far away for anything more than a record shot.

At least you can tell what it is (well just), the afternoon had me back on the Waxwing hunt at Gala Bingo again bumping into Steve Seal.