RSPB Fairburn Ings

 After completing the regular H&S checks at Fairburn and St. Aidans I decided to have a walk to the screen at Lin Dike.

Most of the water on the lagoon is frozen. A few birds were near the small area of open water.

Black-headed gulls and shelduck were the only birds to be seen. To the right of the screen a grey heron and a great white egret were close together, presumably looking for food in a ditch.

The water on the roadside flash was also frozen, with a few birds near the single bit of open water.

Three drake pintail were with the mallards, mute swans and teal.

I then returned to the centre and had a walk around the boardwalk.

A grey squirrel was keeping the birds away from the feeders, but some brave blue, great and coal tits took a chance and went to another feeder.

A female reed bunting also joined the tits, while a dunnock picked up the bits that had fallen onto the floor from the feeders.

I thought that the trees looked smart in the winter sunshine.

Not sure what kind of day we will have tomorrow, will the storm be as bad as forecast?

out and about

 New laptop, fridge freezer and RSPB York Local Group activities have kept me busy since my last post. Once I get behind with posts, I always find it difficult to catch up. so here goes.

6th November I spent the afternoon in the Lower Derwent Valley. I started at Bank Island .

Lots of winter thrushes in the hedgerow as I walked down to Cheesecake hide. not as much water as on my previous visits, but still plenty of birds. Some of the greylag geese were grazing on the grass to the left of the hide. Wigeon, gadwall and pintail were also grazing.

After a couple of hours I left and drove down to North Duffield Carrs. Still no water on the reserve, but 60 whooper swans feeding in the distance.

Friday the 8th saw me at Redcar. I was hoping to see velvet scoters, but could not find any common ones. Lots of sanderlings at the waters edge.

Redshanks, ringed plover , oystercatcher and turnstones also on the beach.

Tuesday the 12th I was at Filey. I walked along Carr Naze, disturbing a few meadow pipits, linnets and snow buntings. The wind was quite strong and the birds were sheltering on the bay side. A flock of about 30 common scoters were on the sea, just off the end of the Brigg. They kept disappearing from view due to the swell,but I saw enough of them to identify them all as common scoter.  A few gannets were still out fishing and a Brent goose flew past.

Saturday the 16th I went to Blacktoft to help Stu with a harrier roost survey.

There had been several high tides and the ditch was full.

this was the view from reception. I went to Singleton hide just after 2pm and stayed until it was time for me to lock up at 5pm.

Lots of marsh harriers came into roost and at one time there 6 in the air at the same time. No sign of a barn owl or hen harriers.

Yesterday. the 20th I went to Hartlepool. When I arrived at 10am according to the weather app on my phone it was sunny, when in reality it was snowing. I sat in the car for about 15 minutes until the snow stopped. it was very windy and the sea was a bit rough.

A group of birders were doing a sea watch but i decided that the weather conditions were too bad. When looking at reports later on I noticed that they had seen several little auks, another chance to reach 200 species for the year missed.

Not many birds about due to fishermen on the rocks. No sign of the black guillemot in the harbour, partly due to the fact that border force boats were carrying out an exercise.

Newburn Bridge was my next stop. The ride was going out so no waders close to the footpath.

Sanderlings, ringed plovers, turnstones on the beach unto; a dog walker arrived. He had 2 choices of beach on which to walk. to his right was empty beach for several hundred yards, to his left a beach full of birds and only a short part of the beach before the water met the rocks. He chose to walk left and so all the birds flew off! No sign of a med gull/

My next stop was to try for twite at Seaton Snook. As i walked through the sand dunes I had to avoid several areas where dogs had failed to clean up their owners mess. The tide was out and i could see several people in the area I was hoping to visit, so decided not to walk any further.

RSPB Saltholme was my last stop. A few teal and shoveler were on the two open stretches of water in front of Phil Stead hide. I walked down to Saltholme Pools hide in the hope of seeing a white fronted goose.

Greylag, canada and barnacle geese but no sign of a white front.

A carrion crow was feeding on a dead greylag.

Hoping to get to 200 soon, but keep missing birds. Still enough time before the year end and the current cold weather might encourage a few birds such as little auks to stay a few days.

Brockholes

 

With Barbara on a recce for a reserve to visit with RSPB York Local Group. We had a cup of tea in the cafe while we studied a map of the reserve, and decided which trail to follow. As they are working on the profile of Meadow Lake we decided to walk around Number 1 Pit Lake, Ribbleton and Nook Pools.

After leaving the Visitor Village, (above photo) we headed for the Lookout hide.

There is a sand martin nest bank to the left and a tern raft towards the centre of the lake, which hopefully in spring and summer will be used by lots of birds. We added Moorhen, Coot. Mallard, Mute swan, Gadwall, 

Great crested grebe and Tufted duck to our day list.

This is the view from the screen of the bird feeding station. Here we saw lots of Blue and Great tits as well as Chaffinches, Blackbirds, Goldfinches, Pheasant, Dunnock, Reed bunting and Song thrush.

The path is also used by cyclists so we had to keep an eye out for them. we did a slight detour and walked to the viewpoint overlooking the River Ribble.

The only thing we saw was a fisherman! Back on the main track we came to an area where there was a bench and a fallen tree.

People had put some bird food on the log which was attracting Coal tit and Nuthatch.

This area of the reserve will be full of bluebells come spring.

We carried on along the track and then turned left towards the centre. This part of the reserve is closest to the M6, and the roar of noise from the traffic grew louder.

We had good views of a Stonechat

Our next stop was at the bird hide from where we could look over Number one pit lake and the island.

A lot of work had been done to improve this area for waders and we added Canada geese and Shoveler to our list. Just before we got to the junction in the path, a Buzzard flew into the trees near the motorway.

our last stop was the bird hide closest to the Lookout hide, where we started our walk. A slightly different view of the island and from where we saw at least 4 Grey herons and several Snipe.

We then returned to the Visitor Village and on the way added Cetti's Warbler to our list and spoke to a lady in the centre, who gave us lots of useful information.

A pleasant day and i look forward to our group visit next year.

Last day of summer birding

 

RSPB Blacktoft Sands re-opened today after another closure due to high tide flooding. This is a picture of the footpath from Reedling hide looking towards reception. Another sign of the recent flood.

I walked down to Ousefleet hide and on the way these whooper swans flew east

 where I saw over 200 teal, lots of shovelers, a few mallard and 4 wigeon, plus these 3 whooper swans.

32 snipe were on Reedling Hide.

not all the snipe were easy to see.

I visited the other hides, and just walked into Singleton hide in time to see some bearded tits.

I returned to Ousefleet to see if I could find the ponies for Stu, who was busy looking after a residential volunteer. I could see 5 of the 6 ponies. In Ousefleet hide I joined Catherine, She had been on holiday to Norfolk and had a good time. She had bought some new binoculars, which she let me look through. We could not talk much as she had a touch of flu and nearly lost her voice. She left to go to other hides, and I stayed a while. Marsh harriers were active.

Ducks in flight when marsh harriers fly over.

Some of the 200 plus teal on Ousefleet.

On my way back to the car park these pink feet flew over.

Several thousand geese flew over the reserve during the morning.

I left just before 1pm to go home to wash my car. Why do farmers have to leaver inches of mud on the road, I saw 2 motorcyclists skid when they came across it.

Clocks change tonight, so my winter starts tomorrow and lasts until December 22nd when the daylight hours start to increase.

Bank Island.

 

 A dull grey morning at Bank Island but a chance to see more birds as there is now more water then on my last visit. An American wigeon had been reported over the weekend, but I was unable to visit the area until this morning.

Better light would have helped as I started to scan the several hundred wigeon on the water. They were not staying still , either paddling back and forth or putting their heads in the water to feed. So it was a slow job scanning each group. I had just about got halfway through the group when a couple of jets roared overhead, which put all the birds to flight. I did not think that for one minute that the birds would return to their original places on the water, so I started again.

After about an hour, I presumed that the American wigeon was not there.

Some of the birds came a bit closer, but sadly still no American wigeon. Year tick number 200 still remains elusive.

Whisby Nature Park

 

RSPB York Local Group coach trip to Whisby Nature Park on Saturday October 19th.

Not the best weather for a coach trip due to the constant rain. However by the time that we reached the reserve, which is near Lincoln, the rain had eased a little and by lunchtime it had stopped.

We decided to do the Grebe walk as there were hides to shelter in. Mute swans, gadwall, shoveler and my first goldeneye of the winter were the birds we saw on the Grebe Lake.

The viewpoint at the Teal lake was our next stop. From here we could see lots of wigeon, lapwings, mallard, mute swans, greylag and canada geese.

We returned to the centre for lunch. Barbara and I ate ours while watching the bird feeders. Blue and great tit were the more numerous birds. A single female chaffinch, two dunnocks and several woodpigeons were also there, as was a jay for a few seconds.

After lunch we walked past the Dragonfly Lakes.

A ruddy darter had landed on a fence rail, no doubt enjoying the heat of the sun.

As we made our way to the Willow Lake we saw several examples of fungi.

This was our view from the Willow Lake hide.

A little egret was perched on the branches to the left of the hide, but it soon flew off. Not long after it left a kingfisher appeared and this was joined by another. We could see a third on the far bank of the lake. During our stay in the hide we had some excellent views of the kingfishers as they flew around.

Long tailed tits were also flitting around on a tree to the right of the hide.

On the way back to the coach and visitor centre we noticed this strange growth on a tree.

Near the footbridge over the railway line we saw lots of sloes.

A pleasant trip with excellent company.