I have often read "tweets" about local birding spots, and often wondered where this one was. My friend Chris sent me a text message a few days ago to say that he had seen a lot of birds very close to his house. The site he was at is near a park and ride on the western edge of York. He kindly gave me directions and I visited some time later. As you can see from the above picture it is a small "flash" of water at the edge of a field.
On my first visit I saw 2 young shelduck, several black headed gulls, magpie, pied wagtail and swallows were flying low and having a drink. Earlier today there was a message on bird guides regarding a little stint, so I paid a visit. Another birder was there looking through his telescope and was able to tell me where the bird was. It was at the far side of the scrape and was slowly walking right as it looked for food so it was easy to see, a nice tick for 160 this year. A ruff was also there as well as lots of black headed gulls.
Saturday and Sunday I was at Blacktoft Sands. I t is very much wader time at the reserve. Although there were somewhere between 10 and 12 different types of wader it was the number of waders that impressed visitors. Most people had not seen as many snipe. Green sandpipers were very mobile and would fly from lagoon to lagoon, calling as they flew. This made counting difficult, but I saw 12 at Townend Lagoon on one of my visits.
Marsh harrier numbers are very low at the moment, but one family put on a display for visitors. Lots of people visit Blacktoft in the hope of seeing bearded tits and water rails and none went home disappointed. Several visitors came back to say goodbye and how much they had their visit as they had had excellent views of lots of birds. Will the wader numbers hold up for the coming weekend and will we get some curlew sandpipers? Time will tell.
Ruff feeding at Marshland.
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