A Norwegian ringed Black-headed Gull at Chatsworth

I'm always on the lookout for colour ringed birds and came across this adult Black-headed Gull today in front of Chatsworth House. It was ringed as an adult last summer in Kristiansand, Norway 800km away.

Surprisingly I saw another Little Egret flying down river at Chatsworth.

Black-headed Gull

Little Egrets - Youlgrave

 I was very surprised to see two Little Egrets together on Harthill Pond, particularly since the pond was almost completely frozen. Checking in my notes it was last August when I last saw one locally, at Chatsworth, and it was last April when I saw one at Youlgrave. My thoughts that they might become established locally have certain not been realised yet.

Little Egrets

The juvenile Pink-footed Goose was still with the Greylags and there was a nice group of 15 Teal displaying on the small area of open water.

Pink-footed Goose with Greylags

I walked up the Monsal Trail from Bakewell yesterday and came across a nice party of Waxwing at the edge of the town, by the A619 road bridge. There were still Waxwings at Hassop Station with plenty of admirers taking photos. There were also several Fieldfare and Redwing taking advantage of the apples that have been left for them. Surprisingly there still looks to be plenty of berries on the Hawthorns south of the station.

Fieldfare

Dipper on the Lathkill

 A singing male Dipper did a bit of display to its mate on the Lathkill this morning, in very cold weather. The male was ringed and I thought its partner might be as well.

Dipper

I've seen a little bit of Goshawk activity in the sunny weather but the lack of wind has prevented any prolonged display.

Northern Goshawk - subadult male

Waxwings are still feeding by Hassop Station car park but numbers are starting to decline with 30 reported there today, and with 35 reported at the Agricultural Centre in Bakewell this morning, it looks like they are starting to look for berries elsewhere.

Peregrine Falcons

I photographed this pair of Peregrine Falcons close to Beeley Moor today. It's quite unusual, for me at least, to see a pair in such close proximity away from a nest site and gives a useful size comparison, with the larger female on the right. 

The male has an almost complete black hood, there is considerable variation in the width of the malar stripe but I can't recall having seen such a dark headed bird in the UK before.

Peregrine Falcon - male left, female right

Red Kite = Chatsworth

I've mentioned previously that Red Kites are generally absent locally from October to February, but this year I have seen single birds in each of the winter months so far. Today there was a bird at Chatsworth and I've had further reports of birds in the Bakewell, Beeley, Baslow area so it looks like one or two birds have remained here over the winter. This is presumably related to the very mild weather we have experienced for most of this period.

Red Kite

I called in to see the Waxwings at Hassop Station and there were still around a hundred birds in the area, with a similar number reported today. It can't be long until all the berries are gone and it will be interesting to see where they go next.