Winter Wonderland

As the sea's have been a bit rough over the last week or so and what with being in bed with man's flu i needed to get out but wait a minute what's this white stuff. As we all know the snow has hit the North East for the first time in 17 years in November, but i needed to get out.

I decided to give the boat a run out to the islands just to see what was around.

After a quick phone call to Keith to see if he wanted to join me, we headed out to the islands.

We had hardly left the harbour when we had 4 Common Scoters fly north over the boat. As we slowly steamed out passing a few Guillemots sitting on the water, we looked across towards the land we saw the beauty of what the snow does to the landscape. Just Beautiful.
As we reached the East Wideopen were we saw a Peregrine Falcon sitting on a stump of wood watching and waiting for his lunch. Just around the corner we came across 8 Long-tailed Ducks, 10 Teal and 2 Red-breasted Mergansers.

We decided to head towards the outer group of islands to see the seals and anything else.
Upon arrival we were greeted by a Merlin sitting on the Brownsman Tower and the island was covered in seal pups.
Just beside the Brownsman was a single Black Guillemot in winter plumage sitting on the water.

Back towards the Inner Farne we passed about 30 Little Auks and loads of Eider Ducks.

As we headed back towards Seahouses the wind picked up, the sky went black and then the snow came down, but it was a nice end to the day.