Marsh harriers sky dancing at Blacktoft

 

The weather could have been kinder for my last shift of the year at Blacktoft. It started to rain soon after I arrived at 0830 and it was still raining when I left at 1600, with just a couple of brief dry intervals.

The wildfowl were favouring the lagoons on the west of reception, Reedling to Ousefleet, because of the wind and the rain. During the few dry intervals the marsh harriers would fly over the lagoons, making the ducks fly as they looked for injured or slow flying birds.

I visited the hides during one of the brief dry spells

Not brilliant photos due to the weather, plus I was using my old 300 Canon lens.

96 wigeon were on the Marshland lagoon along with 12 shelduck. There were 6 male and 1 female shoveler. The males would make a short flight and then the female would follow them.

About 3pm the marsh harriers started to come into roost in the reedbed near Singleton hide. At one stage Stu and I counted 16 in the air at the same time. A nice memory for the end of the year birding.

North Cave Wetlands and North Duffield Carrs

 

The current weather pattern means that I have one day out birding followed by a day at home. I wanted to make the most of what was predicted to be a good morning, so I arrived at North Cave Wetlands at 0830. Just enough light for me to see 5 curlew from the East Hide before they started to call and flew off.

Not many birds at all from the Turret Hide, I presumed that this was because the water was exposed to the strong wind.

A little grebe

A marsh harrier looking for breakfast.

 The feeders by the maize field were busy.

The brambling were staying at the back of the area and flew into the bushes on the right at the first sign of any other birds. 14 different species of birds including bramblings at the feeders.

A female reed bunting swinging about on the top of the hedge near the dragonfly ponds.

This is the new hide, which is going to open in spring, whenever that it is.

Just past the path to the hide there is a path to a viewing screen. This will not be open until they have put some screening along the sides of the path. Just to the left of the screen were a large number of waterfowl including shelduck, pintail, goldeneye and pochard.

Not many birds to be seen from Crossland Hide. A few teal on the main area and about 12 redshank on the right hand lagoon.

Plenty of birds in front of South Hide.

A male bullfinch feeding along Dryham Lane.

A pleasant 2.5 hours and 47 birds on my list. It started to rain so I headed for North Duffield Carrs.

2 pictures of the same view, 1 with sunshine 1 with cloud.  The strength of the wind had increased and there were frequent rain showers,

A mute swan family in front of the Geoff Smith Hide. I was surprised to see the group together, I thought that the adults would have chased the young away by now. Perhaps they will in the next few weeks. About 200 wigeon also on the flooded scrape area. 1 then 2 birders came into the hide. I chap left to go to Thorganby, hoping to see a smew. The other chap did not speak and as he was leaving all the birds left as well.

The sun started to shine and the birds returned.

The mute swans did not stay long as another swan family flew in from the far end of the reserve.

So the male arched his wings over his back and set off to chase the other family away.

 A buzzard soared high overhead

Which I presume caused all the lapwings and dunlin to take to the air.

More rain showers and then I left during the next dry spell. A pleasant 2 hours and a bird list of 26.

Red grouse, Brambling and Twite

 Boxing Day weather forecast was for a decent day so I decided to try to get 2 ticks to take my year total to 200.

I found a quiet road near Goathland. Road signs informing me of weak road and don't use in wintry conditions. I parked off the road and sat and listened for the sound of red grouse. I did not have to wait long, however much to my surprise lots of cars kept going along the "quiet" road.

In between the cars I was able to see grouse as they walked about on the moor.

I then drove to Lockwood Beck as there had been reports of brambling.

The area where most of the bird feeders are was in the shade, so I watched the feeder near the reservoir outfall. 

Chris (chrisdownesbirds) sent me a message about twite at Seaton Snook. I set off and soon arrived. As I feared there were lots of cars parked along the road and lots of dogs with people. I tried to avoid them and walked to the far end of the are.

A large area for small birds so I expected to have to work hard to find them. I had taken my scope, so started to scan the area. I saw a flock of about 40 small birds fly up in the distance so I walked towards where I thought that they may have landed. I stopped to scan the area every few minutes and saw the flock fly a bit closer to me. Once the birds land they are hidden by the vegetation and I was trying to get between them and the sun.

The flock kept flying from place to place, so I was able to get a good enough view to confirm that they were twite.  They landed near a pool of freshwater so I got a much better view and was just about to take a picture when dog walkers climbed over a fence and disturbed them.

2 ticks (grouse and twite) to get me to 200 for the year. Thanks to Chris for his help and encouragement.

"Xmas eve at the bog"

 Not a reflection on my visit with the family to the social club last night, just a short walk around Askham Bog.

Still a lot of water so not the time to stray from the boardwalk. Not many bird about, a mixture of strong winds plus lots of visitors.

A very Happy Xmas to you all.

Sunny Saturday afternoon at Blacktoft.

 

A very early start today. butchers just after 6am and then on to 2 supermarkets and back home just after 9am. I then decided to go to Blacktoft and arrived just before 11am. Ian's car was one of the three vehicles in the car park.

I called in at reception and said hello to Rachel and then walked to  Marshland hide. 4 mallard and 4 lapwings were the only birds I could see. I rang Ian who was in Reedling hide so I walked to join him.

As you can see from this picture there were more birds here. They were sheltering from the strong wind. 

Wigeon, mallard, gadwall, little grebe and snipe were all close to waters edge. After a while we decided to walk to Ousefleet.

One of the six konic ponies walked in front of the hide, disturbing some snipe as he went. He crossed the lagoon and joined the others in the reed bed. I counted 280 teal and 11 shelduck on the lagoon and later 21 lapwing flew in. This female stonechat was having a battle with a robin.

We walked back to reception, and Stu had returned from the office, so I wished him a merry Xmas before we set of for Singleton hide.

The only bird on the lagoon was a great white egret.

I always seem to struggle to get a decent picture of these birds, I think that it is possibly because they are so white and I need to change settings.

Marsh harriers were active.

I left about 1430 and I an rang me later to tell me that an otter turned up about 1510.

1 st day of my summer

 Still a bit windy, but a few rays of sunshine to mark my the first day of my summer, which now lasts until the clocks change in October.

Some of the 11 goosander that were on the lake today.

Askham Bog

 

As I expected, a lot of water at the bog this morning, so I stayed on the boardwalk.

The light was not brilliant, but I managed to get another year tick with a group of about 9 redpoll.

lots of siskin feeding overhead

a very distant great spotted woodpecker

reed buntings

coal tits

great and blue tits

and a ladybird