Staveley NR

 

Last minute change of plans and place, gave me some time to spend at Staveley. Luckily a car was leaving so I occupied their space. A dull cloudy day with a bit of a cool breeze.

The orchard is looking good with plenty of wild flowers in with the grass, but no sign of any butterflies.

A slow walk to the first hide was rewarded with views of a sedge singing away.

It flew from the reeds to a nearby bush.

Common terns were flying around in front of the second hide. One tern was nesting on one of the platforms along side the black headed gulls.

Two black headed gulls were having a tussle.

As I left the hide and walked along the path, this deer was watching me from the field.

I could hear a bittern booming as I approached the 3rd hide, but I did not go in as the person inside was smoking a cigarette!

I walked across the reserve to the other hide.

Plenty of flowers about and swifts were flying low as they hunted insects.

From the other hide I saw ringed plover, lapwing, oystercatcher, wigeon, gadwall, shoveler, canada and greylag geese. Common terns were busy fishing

One landed on a perch and started to call

Another tern arrived and they immediately turned their backs on each other.

 An osprey flying over caused a commotion.

A pleasant couple of hours and 46 birds on my list for the visit.

2 cuckoos at North Cave Wetland.

 

RSPB York Local Group walk at North Cave today. 16 of us met near the Little Butty Bus.

Other birders set off to look and listen for a Savi's warbler, but we decided to stick to our original plan to walk around the reserve in anti-clockwise direction.

Just past the East hide we stopped and listened to a song thrush, blackcap, willow warbler, chiffchaff and willow warbler. In the distance we could hear a cuckoo. From the turret hide we added whitethroat, reed bunting, cetti's warbler and a little grebe with young.

A sedge warbler showed well as we walked along the edge of the set aside field. Rooks and lapwings were in the ploughed field and several whitethroats were in the hedge. At the corner we stopped and looked for a cuckoo, and were pleased to see two fly out from the trees and fly in front of us.

We were unable to locate any young tawny owls in a large willow tree. We observed several sand martins flying into holes in the sand martin bank. Crossland hide was the venue for lunch. Very few birds to be seen from this hide. Where are all the waders?

After lunch we walked down past the new workings towards the new hide, which is still not open for visitors. We saw several common terns on one of the islands along with shelducks with a large number of ducklings.

On our way back to the car park we called in the South hide. Black headed gulls were on the raft and we could see several young. 3 common terns were busy fishing, but we did not see any sign of them nesting.

A pleasant day with good company and a bird list of 46 birds.

Little terns and Red-breasted goose.

 After checking out from the hotel we drove home via Seaton Carew. An area of the beach has been cordoned off so that the little terns can nest without disturbance. There were several terns about. They were on the beach at the waters edge and kept flying over the cordoned off area and settle for a while before taking off again.

Greatham Creek was our next stop where we saw several dunlin and ringed plover.

RSPB Saltholme was our last stop. We visited the wildlife watchpoint first but it was very quiet

We walked down to Saltholme Pools where we were able to add lots of birds to our list including pintail, little ringed plover

black headed gulls had young

tufted ducks looked smart

as did this male shoveler

We then walked to Paddys Pool from where we were able to see some barnacle geese and a red breasted goose was with them. An excellent end to our trip, with 101 birds on our list. 

East Chevington

 On Sunday we drove the short distance to Druridge Bay Country Park. However is was so misty that we could not see across the lake so we decided to walk to East Chevington.

As we walked along we heard and then eventually saw, willow warbler, blackcap, chiffchaff and a reed warbler.

Reed buntings were very active

The reserve uses goats to help graze certain areas.

On our return to the country park, the weather had improved and the place was packed out with visitors. We met another birder who informed us about a spot near Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, so we drove there and parked near the church.

We walked along the coast path until we reached this point. The point the birder had mentioned was a long way away, so we decided to stay. It was a bit on the breezy side, however we had good views of sandwich terns flying past and saw arctic and common terns. Although the tide was coming in, it would be several hours before it would have pushed the birds much closer, so we decided to go back to the hotel. It was our last night so we all had to pack, ready to leave by 10 in the morning.

Hauxley Nature Reserve and Coquet Island

 We spent Saturday morning at this reserve.

We visited all the hides and had a couple of pleasant surprises. We saw a common sandpiper from the first hide that we visited, for many of us it was our first common sand of the year. A barn owl came out of its box and stood on the platform for several minutes.

A pair of spoonbills could be seen from another hide, but they soon flew off.

 Lots of warblers were seen and heard, but few photo opportunities. An excellent reserve with over 45 species seen.

It was time to drive the short distance to Amble to catch the boat for our trip to Coquet Island.

It is not possible to land on the island, but the crew did an excellent job of getting us close to the island.

Luckily we had the boat to ourselves so we were able to make the most of the views we had.

Like the boat trip to the Farne Islands we saw plenty of birds on the sea when we got close to the island.

The boat was not the biggest I have been on and there was a lot of vibration also the sea was a bit choppy so I am pleased with the pictures I managed to take.

It was good to see roseate terns. as the York local group sponsors a nesting box.

Sandwich terns

Purple sandpiper

Knot

A very pleasant trip.

Holy Island

 Friday the 10th was our trip to Holy Island. We arrived at 9am, just after the causeway became safe to cross and left at 2pm just before the high tide closed the causeway.

We walked around the "nature trail".

From the first place we watched, we were able to see a male garganey. It spent most of its time asleep, but a visit later in the day was rewarded with views of it swimming in open water, A little further along we stopped to look over the harbour. As well as attracting a large crowd who kept asking "what are you looking at?"

When we told them, grey plover and bar-tailed godwit, they replied "what's that"

We had good views of skylarks and meadow pipits, but on the whole the number of birds we saw was disappointing.

We visited this hide, from where we saw a little grebe family, and swallows were obviously attempting to nest. 

On our way back to the village we saw a wheatear.

We stopped at Budle Bay where we added little egret, avocet and red breasted merganser to our list.