Bird Race

My nephew (Sam) and myself had a very tiring but enjoyable bird race today with the intention of recording 100 species of bird.
Weatherwise it didn't look very promising as a howling northerly gale brought torrential showers.
The day got off to a promising start with a sparrowhawk flying through as we loaded the car.
We had a few birds from the car as we travelled north including barn owl,stock dove, pheasant, magpie, carrion crow, rook, mistle thrush, song thrush, blackbird, redlegged partridge, starling, collard dove and house sparrow.
We reached Forge valley just before 7 and straight away the common woodland birds obliged and we soon added chaffinch, coal tit, blue tit, great tit, nuthatch, marsh tit and wren to the list.
Further up we found greenfinch, swallow, goldfinch, chiff chaff, house martin, cormorant, blackcap, tufted duck, coot, mallard, treecreeper, long tailed tit, robin, heron and 2 of the days special birds dipper and kingfisher.
We then headed to our second venue-Filey Brigg the change in conditions could not have been more diverse.
The strong northerly wind made it difficult to stand and combined with a high tide conditions did not look good.
A brisk walk to the headland and hiding behind some shelter we found jackdaw, herring gull, linnet, skylark, oystercatcher, feral pigeon, gannet, kittiwake, fulmar, eider, common scoter, meadow pipit, rock pipit, pied wagtail and shag taking the total to 52.
We then called in at Filey Dams to add little grebe, shoveller, mute swan, sand martin, moorhen, tree sparrow, great black backed gull and willow warbler to the tally.
On then to Flamborough a brief stopover produced manx shearwater, puffin, guillimot and razorbill.
A break for a bite to eat and we were off again to Tophill Low, some respite from the relentless wind.
Here we found whitethroat,dunnock, greylag goose, shellduck,canada goose, gadwall, swift, pochard, wigeon, great crested grebe, yellowhammer, sedge warbler, reed warbler, common tern, black headed gull, teal, common gull, garden warbler, reed bunting, little ringed plover, common sandpiper, yellow wagtail and another bonus bird a white wagtail.
A quick view over the wall at Swinemoor produced redshank, kestrel, lapwing, snipe, lesser black backed gull and yet another bonus bird a garganey bringing the total to a healthy 93.
Then on to our final destination-Spurn.
We thought it would be a good idea to try Beacon Ponds first (bad idea) the wind was whipping down the beach blowing sand every where we managed a lesser whitethroat and ringed plover before we got to the hide but when we got the the place was totally devoid of birds barring 2 shellducks.
We made a hasty retreat back to the car park and by now we were flagging.
Our spirits were buoyed by a ring ouzel at canal scrape and we finally managed our target by finding whimbrel, curlew, grey plover and dunlin at the gate.
We could have had more (sanderling, turnstone, brent goose little egret, knot and cuckoo were notable omissions) however after battling the elements for ten and a half hours we decided to call it a day.
Mission acomplished.