Snow Bunting: I do love a snow bunt, they have a character about them which makes them very endearing. Maybe its because they are small dumpy little things that hop about with enthusiasm.
Or maybe its because they are little beauties with their striking winter plumage, yellow bill and rosy cheek patches.
Or maybe its because Snow Buntings are, without question, the toughest small bird on the planet.
No other songbird ventures so far north, and stays so far beyond the Arctic Circle, during the grim northern winter, when they and the local people must endure weeks of almost permanent darkness.
Again, I dipped these last year when a pair, probably the same pair, turned up a little further around the corner at Leasowe.
Its funny how birding works, for example if I had seen the pair at Leasowe last year I may not have come across them today and I am glad I did. The birds were very confiding and came incredibly close, perhaps closer then they would have at Leasowe.
I got some funny looks, not by the snow bunts, but by the dog walkers and passers by as I lay down in the sand to get eye level with the birds.
And there are some ignorant people out today at least two couples and a single lass all with their dogs simply disregarding the fact that I was photographing birds and let their dogs run straight across me - pushing the birds in to flight.
