RSPB Fairburn Ings

 

I

I took some books to Fairburn Ings this afternoon for them to sell and spent about 90 minutes at the Pickup Hide. For a few minutes I even saw the sun!

Lots of activity at the bird feeders

Wren, robin, blackbird, dunnock, chaffinch, siskin. Blue, great, coal and long tailed tit.

On the other side off the reed bed herons and egrets were busily feeding.

Great white egret, cattle egret and grey heron.

The cormorants and grey herons have started to breed and there were several herons catching food and taking it back to their partner on the nest.

Kingfisher

 My first Heron Experience Walk of the season. Before the walk I went to the Pickup hide and this kingfisher flew in.

It dived into the water and caught something.

As we walked to the Heron Experience Viewpoint we disturbed the herd of highland cattle. Feeding near them were 2 great white egrets and 4 cattle egrets.

Cormorants are occupying several nests and I counted 11 gret herons on nests.

Lower Derwent Valley

 I am leading a walk for the RSPB York Local Group on Sunday, so I decided to visit the area yesterday to check on the places we intend to visit.

Bank Island, Wheldrake is where we will meet.

This was my view from the back of Natural England base, water everywhere and not many birds to be seen.

Ferry Lane was stop number 2, only greylag geese in the fields, no white fronts.

Viewing platform at Thorganby was better.

Still vast amounts of water but more birds. A mistle thrush was year tick 99. Wigeon, teal, pintail, shoveler and whooper swans in the distance.

North Duffield Carrs was next.

Again more water, plus the water is still coming over the top of the river bank.

Plenty of birds, although some are at the far end of the reserve. A grey partridge was year tick 100.

Bubwith Bridge area is still flooded and only wigeon to be seen. Aughton Church was my next stop.

How nice. Not much to see due to the misty conditions. Ellerton Church was my last stop.

A whooper swan was feeding close to the church and lots of lapwings. It did no rain during my quick trip round the valley, hopefully it will be the same on Sunday.

 

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.

Signs of spring

 

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.

This long-tailed tit came close to the viewing screen.

Time to leave. A pleasant visit with 49 birds on my day list. I came home via the Lower Derwent Valley. The car park at North Duffield was full so I carried on to Thorganby.

Still lots of water in the valley, but also lots of birds. Still a good number of whooper swans in the distance. Large flocks of lapwings, which kept taking to the air, but I could not see any raptors that might have disturbed them. On my left a couple of greylag geese were having a bathe in a small pool of water when 2 other geese flew in. They were chased by the frst greylag and as I watched I saw that the 2 that had flown in where white-fronts, year tick 96. Howard and his wife turned up and we chatted for a while.I was just ablout to leave when the lapwings took to the air again and I saw a small flock of golden plover, year tick number 97.

A nice end to a pleasant day.

East coast birding

 

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.

A kestrel was out hunting.

About 1430 the short-eared owls appeared, 3 of them.

They did not come very close.

A pleasnt if cold day on the coast.

Big Garden Birdwatch part two.

 

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.