Far Ings,Read's Island and Worlaby Carrs 3-3-12

With Jacqui heading arriving for a day out birding around my local patches but not before she had a hot cup of tea after a 2 hour drive.First stop was Far Ings to see if we could find any of the Smew and Bitterns.We arrived at Ness but what a miserable day but we didn't care just wanted a Bittern to show but after a couple of hours waiting the only birds of note were a flock of around 200 Dunlin heading east and no sign of any Bittern but we did have a visit from Malcom & Matthew Tarlor who kindly looked at Jacqui's settings for her on her Nikon camera,we decided to move on and have a look on Target pit where 1 of the 2 Smew had been over the previous week but with no sign of the first winter male,typical invite friends over and he moves off :( and so did we to have a look on new pit 5 with mainly Wigeon present we carried on round to have a look on Chowder ness with it being cold we didn't stay for long with a few Redshank mixed in with the Curlew and a few Shelduck present.
we walked the Humber bank and headed for Reedy Hide on the north side of ness pit and waited again for any sign of Bittern but rain had set in,so we were more like just taking shelter and watching the usual winter wildfowl,after a while the rain sort of passed and we made our way to the old cement works to see if any wader were on the foreshore but no not 1,yet again the rain came and that seen us off to the visitor centre for a welcomed coffee and a snack,while we watched over pursuit pit again the rain stopped and we headed back to Ness farm stopping off at Hotel hide on the way.
Next stop was to be Read's Island where Avocet and Bean Geese had been present,on arrival there were a number of Curlew in the next field,with me having a scan through the geese and failed to locate any Bean's with inly Canada & Greylags present maybe they was tucked up on the other side of the island out if the wind,we scanned the island for Avocet and managed to locate some in flight on the opposite side of the island before they settled down again great a new bird for Jacqui.We also managed a pair of Marsh Harriers spooking the Lapwing flock which had a few Dunlin mixed in with them,with not much else on show we then headed for Worlaby for the chance of the Shorties showing.We arrived after a quick stop at the shop in Bonby for some food and drink,a few people already on site we went and had a chat and a bit of banter with Roger Hatcliffe,Dave Alan,Keith Mitchell & Colin Pumfrett always good to catch up with a few comments was made when Dave Newby just ignored us all and sat on his own,so the wait began for the owls but just was not to be at about 4.15pm we headed back to my house for a good warming through and nice coffee before Jacqui set off back home only later to learn the we made the wrong choice in leaving but there's always next time.