Blacktoft, Fairburn, Gibraltar Point and Filey

 Friday 23/9 at Fairburn to carry out H&S checks. 

Is this safe!!!

On the 24th I joined the RSPB York Local Group trip to Gibraltar Point. A very enjoyable day, the highlight was a little stint in front of a hide.

The little stint was often near a dunlin which was useful for birders who were not familiar with the species.

Back at Blacktoft on Sunday.

First light at Ousefleet,

Two wrens were in the hide, so I opened windows to let them out. There was also 1 wren in Singleton hide.

Hundreds of ducks on the water until a marsh harrier came by

the harriers fly over and if they see any injured ducks they target them.

a pair of greenshanks have been on the small pool of water in front of Singleton hide for over a week, is it the same pair?

Now that eldest granddaughter is back at uni in Scarboro, the shopping trips have started again. I went to Filey on the 28th, thinking that I might do a sea watch. Shearwaters have been seen so I was optimistic. However, it was raining when I arrived in Filey, so I went straight to the Dams.

This buzzard was perched on this post in the rain, then it would drop down onto the ground and look for food, presumably things like frogs. I had to keep closing the shutters to stop the rain from coming into the hide. When I opened them, I noticed a bit of a commotion in the trees and bushes to the left of the main hide. I saw lots of crows, then magpies and eventually the tawny owls they were harassing. I went back to my car for my scope and saw Steve Race in the car park. He was on one of his Yorkshire Coast Nature trips and came into the hide. The person he was with had never seen a tawny owl in the wild before.

we were able to watch the owls for a while as they had a preen to get dry and just hid from the crows and magpies.

A kestrel had made two attempts to hunt but had been chased off by the crows. On its third visit it landed in a tree and watched as crows flew close to it.

It nearly lost its balance on one crow attack, otherwise it just perched there and watched them fly past.