Bank Island and North Duffield

 Not enough time or energy to walk around Wheldrake, so Bank Island and North Duffield were my next choice. Lapwing, red legged partridge, male shoveler and a pair of pheasants were the only birds on view from the first hide. On my way to the second hide a whitethroat was singing from the top of a hawthorn bush.

The water level is slowly going down so even less habitat for the ducks and geese. A male swan, 4 shelduck, several teal and mallard were on the water, while lapwing patrolled the air, dive bombing what appears to be an ever increasing number of carrion crows. After a while Stuart joined me in the hide, He had been on Wheldrake with Duncan Bye and had seen a male garganey among other birds.

Shortly after Stuart arrived, another birder came into the hide and after a few minutes he saw a male garganey that had just flown in. I left soon after as I did not have a lot of time.

This is the view I had from the Geoff Smith hide. A pair of mute swans were doing some repairs to their nest before changing over.

The vegetation in front of their nest is too high for me to see if they had any eggs in the nest. Closer to the hide a pair of coots have a nest and it was family feeding time.

A curlew was calling and did a couple of circuits of the scrape before landing in the far left hand edge of the water. I always enjoy hearing and watching curlews but I was rather pleased to see this bird as it had a damaged leg and I hoped that it might have been the same bird I saw earlier in the year.

As I said the curlew landed at the far edge of the scrape and as I watched it I saw a bird fly behind it and into the hedge. I used my scope to find it and it was a female reed bunting, perhaps it was going to its nest? Hello, what is the other bird in the hedge? It was a male whinchat, my first one of the year, tick number 149.

A sedge warbler was singing from a hawthorn bush.

I could see at least 50 swans in the further part of the reserve so decided to walk down to the garganey hide. On the way a male chaffinch perched on a post long enough for me to get a photo.

Very little water  to be seen from the hide. The nearest birds were 6 greylag geese, 2 of which had young and had to keep chasing the other geese away from them.

A wren was making alarm calls in front of the hide, so I left as I did not want to be the cause of their alarm. Back in the Geoff Smith hide I could see sand and house martins and swallows, but no sign of any swifts. Time to go home, but before I left the reserve I had a walk to the new viewing screen.

No birds to be seen but plenty of flowers.

When I reached the car park, my friend Chris Downes had just arrived. It was very nice to see him and have a chat. I am looking forward to his latest blog:chrisdownesbirds.

Scarborough on Wednesday.