A quick visit to St. Aidans this afternoon to check on details for a Heron Experience walk at Fairburn on Wednesday. I then walked around Bowers Lake. No sign of a red crested pochard.
As well as cormorants, my first great crested grebe of the year.
I heard a couple of Cetti's warblers singing a few notes. No sign of the little owl, a long tailed tit near the car park.
I started the year at North Cave, so decided to end the month there as well, as for once we had a sunny day.
I met Stu near the Maize Field and we decided not to go to the Turret Hide as it was full of people hoping to see a bittern. We went into the East hide as it looks out onto a similar piece of the reserve. No sign of a bittern, after we had been in the hide for a while a chap came in and he told us that he had seen the bittern about an hour ago. We left the hide and just before we got to the new storage building we heard then saw a song thrush.
We moved on to the South hide. Just outside the hide lots of siskins were chattering away.
As we walked further down Dryham Lane, Stu spotted a redwing feeding at the bottom of a hedge.
Lots of duck from Crosslands Hide as we walked to the new hide we realised that the white birds we had seen on the water were not gull but lots of shelduck, over 100. As we scanned the area looking at birds, Stu spotted 2 egyptian geese flying, year tick 94. Stu headed for home when we left the hide and I turned right to go to the viewing screen. Near the bungalow I saw this great spotted woodpecker fly ino a tree.
Year tick 95. From the viewing screen I saw two oystercatchers, another sign of spring when they return.
Further along the road I saw fieldfares in a recently ploughed field. I walked along the west path to the North Hide and added reed bunting and pheasant to my day list. Snowdrops, spring is on its way.
At the Maize feeding station I managed to get a glimpse of a goldcrest.
It was noving very quickly so I did not get a good photo. It was good to see lots of greenfinch at the feeders.
Scarborough Harbour on a cold damp Monday morning. In the harbour I spotted a red-throated diver, and just managed this shot as it swam out into the bay.
A great northern diver swam into the harbour and started to dive for food and caught a crab.
I think that is the lump in its throat.
RSPB Bempton was my last stop for today. I could not find a woodcock in the Dell, even though it was reported that there were 5 present. No luck either with snow bunting or corn bunting at Jubilee Viewpoint. I did see 3 flocks of small birds, but due to the poor light I could not determine what they were.
My first gannet of the year
Watching fulmars brought back happy memories of the time I spent on Foula, Shetland.
About 1430 the short-eared owls appeared, 3 of them.
They did not come very close.
A pleasnt if cold day on the coast.
We were based in Homestead Park, York for the second day of the BGBW. The weather was not as good as yesterdays but better than the forecast.
We had a base inside where families could enter a quiz, make flannel chicks, do colouring or buy pin badges, and on a day like today it was very popular.
We placed some feeders in trees around the meadow and we were able to show visitors the birds.
Over the 4 hours we were there we managed to see 16 different types of birds.
In the Museum Gardens, York today with Andy and Isobelle.
For a welcome change this event did not clash with Residents Weekend.
Plenty of interest from visitors to the gardens and we lead a series of walks to see the birds in various parts of the site.
Near the Marygate entrance is a Cotoneaster bush and blackbirds and redwings were visiting the bush to feed on the berries. At the bird feeding station we saw blue, great and coal tits, robins, dunnock and goldcrest. A fly through by a sparrowhawk sent them all scattering for cover.
Part 2 at the Homestead Park tomorrow, let's hope that the rain does not spoil things.
H&S checks and then a spot of birdwatching before helping with a walk to see the Murmuration.
I went to the Bob Dickens hide to look at the birds on the Main Lake. Lapwing, mute swan, tufted duck, pochard, goldeneye and goosander. I heard a green woodpecker on my way back to the Doug Pickup hide.
From here I saw cormorants and goosander fly towards the Lin Dike end of the reserve. Highland cattle were grazing close to the reeds around the scrape, when I noticed a cattle egret.
Another 3 egrets flew in and started to feed. Blue, great and long-tailed tits were visiting the feeders along with robins, goldfinches and a male bullfinch.
A red kite was hunting over the field to the right of the hide and as I was watching it a great-white egret flew toards the scrape.
Time to go to the visitor centre and meet the people who have booked on the murmuration walk.
It had been raining all day and visibility was not great, so we were not sure what kind of murmuration there would be.
Not a great photo but I think that you might just make out the dark cloud of about 20,000 starlings.
Nice to see pochard on Reedling lagoon.
Large flocks of geese on the field next to the reserve, mostly greylag with at least one bean goose. I tried to get a picture but the geese were close to the floodbank and I did not want to disturb them. So my pictures have either grass or fence in the bottom which does not help.
The bill marking is different to usual Tundra bean geese, but the general opinion is that they are Tundra bean geese.
On my way home I called in at North Duffield Carrs.
Water levels are slowly going down. large numbers of greylag and canada geese, plus wigeon, pintail, goldeneye, scaup and tufted duck. lapwings, dunlin and redshank on the exposed bits of land. A pair of stonechats on reeds around the scrape were my first of the year.