Paxton Pitts

 

Not the best weather for my last birding session of the year. I found a nice dry corner out of the wind in the kingfisher hide and spent a pleasant hour watching 10 goldeneye. There 6 males and 4 females and some of the males were displaying. The group of them slowly visited different parts of the lagoon, but not near enough for a picture in the poor light.

The rain stopped about 11am but the light did not improve until I was in the car driving to Cambridge to pick up my granddaughter.

I need to get another car asap, as my old one is too costly to repair. So 2023 birding will be off to a slow start. I had thought about going to see the walruss, but did not fancy battling through crowds of people on January 1st.

Best wishes to all for a bird filled 2023.

Hen harrier at North Duffield

 I think that today is likely to be my last day of bird watching this year. The weather in York was awful this morning, so I decided to drive to North Duffield Carrs. On the A64 the line of traffic queuing to  get onto the A19 must have been about 2 miles long, so I decided to go to North Cave and visit North Duffield on the way home.

As you can see from the picture the weather was not brilliant but at last it had stopped raining. Tufted ducks, mallards, teal, coots, a moorhen and a little grebe were on the lagoon in front of the South hide.

More birds on view from Crosslands hide. As I walked up the slope to the hide, a birder was standing under the porch and told me that he had seen two peregrines hunting over the reserve.

I went inside and could see that there were more birds on this lagoon than on the south lagoon. Lots of wigeon, a few shoveler, a single black tailed godwit, a few pochard and lots of gadwall.

I have seen shoveler feeding together in a group but this was the first time that I had seen gadwall doing it. After a while the chap outside shouted that the peregrine was out hunting again, so I went outside to watch it. The lapwings soon flew off and shortly afterwards I left and drove to North Duffield.

There are lots of road signs  informing drivers of vans and HGV's that Bubwith Bridge is closed for them . When I got to the bridge I could see why, there is very little room to drive through. This did not deter a driver of a tipper truck just managing to squeeze through.

A few birders in the hides, including Mark in the Geoff Smith hide. The large herd of whooper swans was way over by Aughton Church. No birds on the scrape, but plenty of lapwings, wigeon, gadwall, shoveler and tufted duck along with at least 10 smart looking male pintails. Mark had also been at North Cave but had driven to North Duffield after seeing a report of a hen harrier. Just before I left the hide he managed to locate it in the distance near the farm.

Grafham Water

 As I mentioned in my last posting, I did return to Grafham Water on Saturday morning before driving home from Cambridge. The weather was much better than on my previous visit.

The vast majority of the birds on the water were coots, with a few goldeneye and tufted ducks. However, once the sailing boats came onto the reservoir, the birds slowly moved towards the nature reserve side.

The two Bewick's swans were easier to see in the sunshine.

Lots of teal, but no sign of a green winged one. Pied wagtails, meadow pipits, chaffinches, siskin and a pair of bullfinches were close to the hide.

Something disturbed the birds and within a couple of minutes there were no birds to be seen from the hide, so I decided to leave and drive home.

Early summer birding.

 I divide my year into two seasons. Summer and winter. Winter starts on the day in October when the clocks go back an hour. Summer starts on December 22nd when the daylight hours start to increase on an evening. 

So this is my first bit of birding in the first days of my summer. Not the best of starts as the clutch on my car started to slip, so it needs replacing, an expensive start to 2023. Scarborough was my first bit of birding, when I went to pick up my granddaughter.

No sign of any divers or auks in the harbour, a single redshank and turnstone.

Near where I parked my car, fulmar were cackling to each other.

Today, Friday the 23rd, I took my granddaughter to Cambridge, and then I went to Grafham Water. My first visit to this area, so I looked at a map whilst enjoying some tomato and basil soup in the cafe,

After lunch I then walked to the first hide. Inside the hide were two chaps who had been fishing, but they stopped because of the rain and cold.

As you can see from the above photo, the water level is still low. From the hide I could see 2 swans, but they were mostly out of sight due to the tree. The swans were busy feeding, and as they lifted their heads out of the water, I could see lots of mud on their heads and beaks.

On my second visit to the hide, the sun was shining and I managed this shot of one of the swans.

Lots of coots, a few goldeneye, mallards and wigeon. A small flock of teal were asleep near the waters edge, but I was unable to find the green winged teal, which had been reported. Several views of a green woodpecker as it flew in front of me. A song thrush was sat in a bush drying out after the rain.

Planning on a return visit to the area tomorrow on my way home.

Cold enough for penguins

 

Sunday December 11th became a free day due to the weather, so I decided to try to see the king eider at Redcar. It was very cold but visibility was good. I saw a birder on the beach so walked out to join him. Like him I could see eiders but no king eider. Plenty of sanderling and oystercatchers and a few redshanks. As the tide was going out the dog walkers and horse riders were along the waters edge and kept disturbing the birds.

I saw a group of birders further along the promenade and walked down to join them. A group of eiders were on the sea and the birders were using their scopes to scan through them. The eiders were living up to their reputation of liking rough seas as they were feeding near some rocks and the birds were often out of view due to the waves. I did manage a couple of views of the king eider, but it was difficult. After a couple of hours I left and drove to Hartlepool Headland.

There was a couple of inches of snow on the ground, which was picturesque but made walking a bit tricky, I was hoping that there would have been lots of birds close to the shore and on the rocks, but there were fishermen about and no birds to be seen.

I walked down to the Pilot Pier hoping to see birds in the entrance to the harbour, but again no birds to be seen.

Lots of ringed plovers and sanderlings on the pebbles at Newburn Bridge. The car park is on a slope and getting out was tricky.

Zinc Works Road was my last stop. Lots of curlews, lapwings and golden plovers in the fields. A pair of stonechats were busy feeding and at one point were picking up insects from the road.

On Monday and again today I went to Askham Bog. I put some bird seed on to some fence posts and small birds soon came to feed. Nuthatch, marsh tit, blue tit, great tit, dunnock, blackbirds and lots of redwings.

Local birding

 Taxi jobs today gave me a chance to visit two local venues.

Askham Bog was my first stop. A lot of robins

some of whom kept chasing other robins away from the food that I put on the fence posts.

a few great tits and blue tits, but no sign of coal tits or dunnocks. A family of long tailed tits in the tree tops but redpoll remains unticked on my year list. As I left the reserve a flock of redwings flew over and some landed on the tree tops.

Rawcliffe Lake was my second stop.

Parts of the lake were frozen as you can see from this picture

Mallards were eager to eat the seed that I put out for them while this goosander kept its distance.

North Duffield Carrs

 Managed a couple of hours at NDC before it was dark. Heavy rain showers and one spell of sunshine.

Plenty of water and lots of birds. 2 buzzards and a kestrel kept the ducks and waders on alert.

A few dunlin and starlings in with the lapwings and golden plover. Lots of wigeon and teal with 2 pintails. Stonechat, wren, dunnock and fieldfares flew close to the hide

Winter sea watch on November 21st

 I am not sure how I managed this, but this post ended up on another page on my blog.

I started at Flamborough where I was hoping to see the waxwings that had been recently reported. Visibility was not brilliant due to mist. The birds were perched in the treetops and were not coming down to the trees with berries on. 3 photographers were asking why. They were stood about a foot away from the tree, what did they expect!

Carl turned up to see the birds and then we went to the Headland in the hope of seeing little auk ands velvet scoter. Sadly, we saw neither. Lots of guillemots flying about and common scoters.

Seals were close to the shore

they were very close to each other; do they mate in water?

After a couple of hours I went to RSPB Bempton Cliffs.

The long eared owl was still to be seen in the Dell. Black redstart and ring ouzel had been reported but all I managed to find were these goldfinches.