Garganey at Bank Island

 After another busy morning at football it was 2:45 when I entered the first hide at Bank Island. The above picture is the view I hide. I presume that a barn owl had been roosting inside the hide

droppings were over the floor, bench and door handle!

On the scrape were greylag geese

mallard, gadwall, mute swan

this swan had a ring on its right leg, this is as much detail as I could get.

This is one of two male shovelers

I then walked to the second hide where I joined TerryWeston, Terry told me that the garganey had flown off about 30 minutes before I arrived, however the black necked grebe was still present.

It was a long way from the hide, this is a heavily cropped version

A couple joined us in the hide and shortly afterwards Terry left. The couple then left as they were going to walk on to Wheldrake Ings. I watched a pair of buzzards as they flew back and forth, calling as they went from tree to tree. Then I saw a small light coloured duck fly across the water, it was the male garganey. It flew left, so I returned to the 1st hide I visited to see if it had returned.

There was no sign of it, a curlew flew in

and started to bathe

shortly after a second curlew landed

this one started to bathe. A pair of oystercatchers then landed

a second male shoveler appeared and after being chased by the other male they both landed next to each other and started head bobbing

"Big Bill" then arrived

All of the birds then looked to where it was as they al realised it would eat eggs or young.

I then returned to the 2nd hide for a last look for the male garganey but I could not see it.

Barnacle goose at NDC

 

The view from the Geoff Smith hide in between squally showers, when Stuart and I had to close the windows to stop the rain blowing in.

We saw a barnacle goose feeding near the Garganey hide, I could see that it had a white ring on its right leg. I was going to go down to the other hide to try to read the ring, but the weather changed my mind.

This is the 75th different bird that I have seen on the reserve this year and my 113th since I started keeping records.

Alan Whitehead joined us in the hide and as he located the barnacle goose it flew across to the other side of the reserve.

Little grebes are nesting in front of the hide

A little further out a pair of coots are also nesting.

The mute swans seem to have settled on their nest site, to the left of the scrape. A nice group of 6 drake pochard were on the scrape with some tufted ducks.

Still one or two pairs of pintail on the reserve along with wigeon, shoveler, little egrets and grey herons.

More summer visitors at Blacktoft

 Pleasant sunshine which gradually gave way to cloud and the wind still had a cold edge to it.

Leading a walk this morning and spoke to Pete, Gareth and Daz in reception before we set off.

Pete had been out in the reedbed doing survey work and had heard a grasshopper warbler, he also had whinchat and lesser whitethroat.

We started off at Ousefleet hide, which like the other lagoons had been flooded due to the recent surge tides. The team had worked hard to get the reserve open again yesterday after several days of flooding.

4 avocets on the lagoon still enjoying an early morning nap. This redshank slowly walked around the edge of the water

Shelduck, shoveler, teal ,mallard, gadwall, pochard, tufted duck, little egret, grey heron, coot and marsh harrier were added to our day list.

Prior to the latest flood there were over 100 snipe on site, many are still there but are well hidden

Water voles have been seen in the ditch in front of the hides on a regular basis and this swam past us as we sat in Townend hide.

Reed warbler, sedge warbler, blackcap and chiffchaff were singing as we walked along the paths between the hides. Not always easy to see but good to know that they are back. We heard al least 4 cetti's warbler "shout" at us we walked through their chosen territory. This chiffchaff was outside reception hide.

At least 2 bitterns were booming and the marsh harriers are very active. We saw 2 food drops and a male chase away 2 crows from the area where his nest is.

A very pleasant walk with a over 40 birds on our day list. After the visitors left I returned to Marshland hide for about 30 minutes and managed to see this yellow wagtail on one of the islands. 2 pied wagtails were constantly chasing it, so it was not allowed to settle for very long, and eventually flew off.

Back on Sunday, when I hope that the weather will improve and the visitors can enjoy seeing as well as hearing the recently arrived warblers.

Yellow wagtail and wheatear

 Recent reports on X regarding yellow wagtails and wheatears had me heading for the cycle track from Naburn Village.

I parked the village side of the bridge over the old railway line and turned left once I was on the track.

I continued to walk until I came to a "brown" field and started to scan the area.

I came cross this rook having a drink

When I reached a viewing screen 

I stopped and scanned the field from there. In the middle of the field I saw several yellow wagtails and wheatears. 2 new birds for my year list.

4 cattle egret at Fairburn Ings

 

Firstly a picture of our local fox who was settling down for a Sunday evening nap.

Today I was at Fairburn Ings and St. Aidans to complete the usual H&S checks. Not brilliant weather

Blustery winds and showers of rain at St. Aidans. The kestrel were mating on the big digger and a little owl was sat on top of a concrete fence post.

I returned to Fairburn Ings and spent some time at the Lindike end of the reserve. The feeders in the car park were still attracting birds.

willow tits were among the visitors

I then walked down the footpath towards the hide and noticed that the highland cattle were close to the footpath. There 4 cattle egrets in the field with the cattle.

Osprey at Bank Island

 

After a busy morning at football, I decided to have a couple of hours birding. I left home with the intention of trying to see yellow wagtails and woodlark. However on my journey through York I decided that I would just go to Bank Island and sit on the viewing platform and have a couple of hours lazy birding.

Andrew was in the car park and he was going to the hide until he saw the path was flooded, so we both ended up on the viewing platform.

As you can see from the photo, there was plenty of water at Bank Island and we could see over to Wheldrake, where again wellies were needed to get to the hides. Plenty of water means that the birds have lots of choice as to where to be and apart from 23 tufted ducks and a similar number of coots, there were few birds about.

Lots of goldfinches flying about. Settling on wires, flying down to eat dandelion seeds. A blackcap was singing but we were unable to locate it. Eventually we spotted it in the mature sycamore in front of us and later on I just managed this shot of a female before she too moved on.

Tick 149 for the year, would I get to 150 today?

A pair of grey partridge flew in and ran off into the long grass

A chiffchaff had been singing all the time that we were there and then suddenly appeared behind us

A pair of pied wagtails landed on a trailer in front of the platform

It was now approaching 4:30 and Andrew left, jokingly saying that I had not better see a red necked grebe or osprey!!

then at 5.15pm an osprey appeared!

Quite high up and the light conditions were awful, but I managed a couple of shots.

What a bird to get on a lazy Sunday birding trip and number 150 for this year as well.

I need to avoid Andrew now!!