Walshaw area

Fantastic days birding today starting off with Lesser Spotted Woodpecker along Widdop Road. It might be worth checking out the spot again if anyone is passing!

Go past the crags National Trust car park on the r h side of Widdop Road, 150 meters or so along the road going towards the camp site, is a small gully with trees leading up from the crags. The bird was in the top tree, right next to the road(quite a lot of dead branches) then flew across towards the farm copse across the road and lost from view in the farmyard trees.

Red Throated Diver on middle walshaw gave brilliant views - down to 50 mtrs. Well done with the pictures Shaun! Seen to catch one or two sticklebacks but spent a lot of time just looking underwater for prey without much success.

Also at the big plantation below lower walshaw were a lot of Chaffinch and some Brambling and Siskin. Migrating Fieldfares and Starlings were also going through there and Blake Dean in groups of 20 -40. They were moving through at least between 10.30 am and 2 pm so probably more than a thousand of each passing through

Also along Widdop Road a weasel caught and killed a full size rabbit and dragged it off into cover. Initially the rabbit squeeled for about 2 mins and seemed unable to run off with the weasel on its back and round it's throat. How does such a small predator take on such prey several times bigger??