Walney

The weekend 10-11 December welcomed Katrina Cook, a Maalie Courtier, to Maalie Court. Katrina is a curator of birds at the Zoology Department (Bird Group) of the Natural History Museum at Tring and is also a distinguished wildlife artist . Events of the weekend included a tour of Askam Pier and village, listening to my collection of Kris Kristofferson albums, and watching the complete 5-hour video of the renowned BBC production of Pride and Prejudice. On Sunday in fine weather we visited Walney Island Bird Observatory and joined observatory member and local birder Colin Raven on a round of the Heligoland traps. Whilst we were unable to catch anything, birds seen included 6 Greenshank, 2 Black Guillemots, a drake Scaup, a Little Egret and a wintering Great Northern Diver, the latter being the 187th species for my Cumbria bird list.