What a difference a day ( or two) makes....

From this - Thursday evening at Embleton for a walk along the shore...



...nice sunny views of Dunstanburgh Castle...



The dark blackish red hips of Burnet Rose...



...and these four looking down on me in the loos at Low Newton...


To this today -



...the river Aln at Lesbury Bridge has burst its banks after 4" of rain in 24 hours...

A bit too busy for birding today, but the weather was scarcely good enough to allow a glance through the bins without them being rained up. The wind was a NNE 7 with heavy rain all through the daylight hours. Many roads were just about impassable around here either with floods or with cars parked and people photographing floods!

I did manage a half hour soaking at Boulmer and in the dismal driek had 1 female Redstart, 4 Wheatears and a few Willow Warblers. Soaked to the skin I retired to the comfort of home...I'm too long in the tooth for soaking pluggings like this!

A few calls from friends enlightened me as to what I was missing -

Holy Island, Wryneck in the dunes.
Druridge Bay Country Park - Icterine Warbler, Wryneck and Wood Warbler...
Newbiggin - 2 Wrynecks, 1 Dotterel, 1 Grey headed Wagtail and knee deep in common migrants...

Finding that lot in this weather, now thats dedication...

Reminds me of a parable I once heard...

Two Bulls in a field. The young bull says to the old bull, 'Look!, there's some cows down there, lets run down and get one each', as he stamped his feet and snorted with excitement...

The old wise bull replied, with a knowing look, 'Tell you what, lets just walk down and we'll get the lot'...

Hopefully the weather might be a bit better tomorrow and the birds will give themselves up more easily...