Bubwith Bridge and North Duffield Carrs

 A late start today, so it was 11pm when I arrived at the car park at Bubwith Bridge. Whooper swans were surprisingly close, as were wigeon and pintail. On a spit of land there were lots of golden plover, lapwings and curlews. Straight in front were lots of teal, several redshank and a few ruff, some of which had a white collar, my 129th tick of the year. Also in front I could see Alan Whitehead and another birder, who were viewing from the Dingle Dell side of the Ings. After an hour of scanning the area, I was unable to locate an American wigeon.

I drove the short distance to North Duffield Carrs and was surprised to find that I was only person there.

Lots of water and most of the birds were a fair distance away. A couple of birders from Knaresboro joined me in the hide. They were following a route written by John Lawton, which covers the various birdwatching sites around the Lower Derwent Valley. After about half and hour they left to go to Thorganby and a few minutes later Alan Whitehead (Duffbirder meets South Holderness) joined me.

We spent the next couple of hours watching the birds on the reserve and chatting. Alan left to go home and I decided to go for a walk as I had been sitting for over 2 hours.

The Garganey hide is about half submerged, so I walked along the path towards it. As I left the Geoff Smith hide I saw a treecreeper on the trees on my left. It was so close I could have touched it.

I managed to get a photo as it moved a bit further away from me. After it flew off I walked a little further down the path. In one of the trees a flock of linnet were perched, my second year tick of the day.

"Not in front of the children"

The sun was starting to burn away the mist as I arrived at Blacktoft Sands this morning,

This was the view from Reedling hide in the afternoon after the mist had gone.

Still a few pools of water about on the path to Reedling and Marshland hides. Easy walking in wellingtons, a bit tricky in walking boots.

This coot was having a rest and a preen after chasing away other coots

Lots of small birds singing and displaying

Snipe, teal . mallard and wigeon on an island in Marshland lagoon.

Lots of snipe, This one was close to Marshland hide

It moved out into the open

it was bobbing as it fed, but was it a jack snipe?

I don't think so.
 Little grebes were busy fighting then mating. The marsh harriers put on a good display

Then they were mating in front of Townend and Reception hides!. Sadly/luckily there were no children about to ask awkward questions.

Teal for tea!

 As I write this blog I am now on plan d! Plan b was to go to North Duffield Carrs, but as the car park was full, I decided to carry on driving and go to North Cave.

I drove down to the Crossland hide and sat down next to Dave. We had a pleasant chat before he decided to walk down to the new workings. At least a dozen mute swans on the lagoon

then suddenly they took off

this swan took a long time to get airborne, I thought that it might run out of water

but at last it made it. 2 buzzards were interacting

2 rooks were enjoying a ride as the wind blew the tree branches

Dave came back from his walk and reported that there were not many birds on the new workings, We chatted as he ate his lunch and enjoyed watching the 30 plus redshanks on one of the islands. I decided to head for home via North Duffield and Bank Island. Road works in Holme upon Spalding Moor held me up for about 10 minutes. I was pleased to see only 2 cars in the car park at NDC. As I was getting my gear together, a chap walked into the car park and told me that the bottom hide was flooded. I thanked him for the information and walked to the Geoff Smith Hide, to find that it was empty.

Then another birder arrived, and shortly afterwards we were joined by John. John had been down to the screen and to Bubwith Bridge, looking for an American wigeon. Sadly he was unable to locate it. John did not stay long as he went to explore other parts of the valley.

I think that the water level had risen slightly since my last visit, which left even less room for the birds. Lapwings, curlews, dunlin, snipe, teal and wigeon were trying to escape the water and find some dry land to stand on. Suddenly they all took to the air, and after much searching I located a marsh harrier. After flying over the small bits of vegetation protruding from the water on the reserve, the harrier flew over the river and about half way across, it caught a teal in its talons. It landed on the far bank of the river with its catch.

Not a brilliant picture due to the distance and the light conditions. As I was watching the battle between the marsh harrier and the 2 carrion crows this happened

Several thousand starlings flew across the reserve and over the hide. I could hear the sound that their wings made and then the noise as their droppings hit the roof of the hide! No murmuration, but loads of starlings.

I returned to watching the marsh harrier

a grey heron had joined the group and the marsh harrier was having a tussle to hold on to the teal. The crows kept pecking at him, so eventually he moved away and they started to peck at the teal. Then they had to give way to the grey heron as it used its big bill to get part of the teal. 

I then left, only to find that the direct road to Thorganby etc had been closed. If I had followed the diversion it would have been too dark to birdwatch, so I drove straight home.

North Duffield Carrs and Hagg Lane.

 Not quite the weather I was expecting this morning, more rain! I started at North Duffield Carrs as I did not want to walk in the rain. Just as much water as when I was last there on Wednesday. However there were more birds on the reserve. although some of them were a long way from the hide. The nearest birds were 3 little grebes, who were keeping within the area of the scrape at normal water level.

In the distance were several pintail, and amongst the tufted ducks were a pair of goldeneye. Lapwings and 3 curlew were confined to the few bits of land not covered by water. In some of the thicker vegetation I noticed a snipe. When it was feeding it was bobbing up and down, my first jack snipe of the year.

After a couple of hours I left and drove to Hagg Lane, East Cottingwith.  As I passed the farm on the right hand side of the road, I saw a large herd of whooper swans.

Hagg Lane was as expected very muddy with lots of puddles, so I was glad that I had chosen to wear my wellingtons. In the first field on the left, I saw the first lambs of the year. Further down the lane I came to a stubble field in which there were lots of bales of hay. I call them bales, but they are round not oblongs. Lots of skylarks in the field, some chasing each other about, others standing on the bales. Eventually I managed to find a corn bunting perched on top of one of the bales. Another year tick.

York Railway Pond

 Just time for a walk to this little nature reserve.

The first part of the walk takes across part of Hob Moor. Woodpigeon, black-headed gull, carrion crow and a red kite.

There are trees on the next part of the walk

More signs of spring. Greenfinch and bullfinch were calling as they flew from tree to tree.

A couple of people were fishing at the pond. A lady walking her dog, stopped as we both listened to a song thrush singing. A skein of pink footed geese flew west, as they start their journey back to Iceland.

A pleasant walk with 16 birds on my list. No year ticks, but an extra 3 birds on my inner York list.

Valentines day in the Lower Derwent Valley.

 

RSPB York Local Group monthly walk, and today is was in the LDV. 10 am at Bank Island was the plan.

I arrived a good 90 minutes earlier so that I could have a long watch from the viewing platform, plus I wanted to call in at the Natural England office and collect my copy of the 2022 Filey report.

This was my view. Like a lot of places the water levels are very high after the recent rain, and the River Derwent has burst it banks again. RSPB Blacktoft Sands is closed for the next few days because of the flooding caused by recent high tides.

The rest of our group for the day arrived about 10am and by the time we left I had 29 birds on my day list, including grey partridge, my 126 tick for this year. There was lots of activity, with blue and great tits chasing each other about. Goldfinch, greenfinch and song thrush could be heard singing.

The viewing platform at Thorganby was the 2nd stop of the day.

Once again a lot of water, this time you could see that it had spread right across the valley. We were not able to locate a little owl, which can often be seen in the area. A red kite, perched in a distant tree was added to the list.

North Duffield Carrs was stop number 3.

The water was still pouring over the river bank onto the reserve, and only the roof of garganey hide was visible. Ian, a fellow volunteer at Blacktoft was in the hide when we arrived. He very kindly pointed out some of the birds on view, before vacating his seat to allow one of our group to sit down. 4 little grebes were on the water in front of the hide. It was not possible to see the boundaries of what was the scrape as the level of the water was so high. A small flock of dunlin were flying about, no doubt looking for dry land, and just before we left, 2 groups of golden plover flew east.

Stop number 4 was at Bubwith Bridge. Lots of whooper swans, some of whom were calling, no doubt restless and ready to go west on the start of their journey back to Iceland. Sadly the rain started and persisted for the rest of the afternoon. A kestrel hunting for its lunch brought our day list up to 42.

Aughton Church was stop  number 5.

Once again we could see across the valley and no sign of the river bank. A male pochard was diving for food a little way from the churchyard, increasing our day list.

Ellerton was our last stop for the day. The rain had become more persistent which made viewing difficult as bins, scopes and spectacles  became difficult to see through. A wren, 3 mistle thrushes and a group of skylarks helped to bring our day list total to 46 birds.

A pleasant day, despite the rain.

City of York Art Gallery Lightshow

 Runs from 6pm to 9pm until February 25th, and plays every 10 minutes.

Half term local birding

 

Change of routine this week as it is half term. This morning I was with my youngest granddaughter walking the dog when we saw a grey wagtail near the sluice on Holgate Beck. My first grey wagtail of the year, tick number 125.

We would normally follow the path along the River Ouse but that is not possible at the moment.

After lunch we had a walk on Hob Moor.

Not as sunny as this morning. However I managed to add sparrowhawk to my list of birds seen in Inner York.

These were 2 of a group of six magpies, which were sitting on the top of a hawthorn bush. According to the rhyme, six are for gold, so perhaps I ought to buy a lottery ticket!

A gulp of cormorants at RSPB Old Moor

 Another day out with Gerald, today we were at Old Moor, where Gerald was helping with the WeBS count.

We visited all of the hides and had a day list of 43, including 2 year ticks.

Some of the highlights.

It was good to see lots of common gulls

Part of the gulp of cormorants

A female goldeneye

The plumage on gadwalls appear to me as if they have been hand painted

 

The male pochards had mud on their beaks after diving for food.

Oystercatchers have arrived back at Old Moor, another sign of spring.

This young swan was happily feeding next to the footpath.

This area is tree sparrow farm where there are several bird feeders. On my first visit there were not many birds about as the feeders were nearly empty. After completing the WeBS count Gerald and I visited the area again and Gerald got some seed and filled up the feeders. We were sat in one of the hides, where Gerald was helping visitors to identify the birds. He does this very well by asking which birds they are interested in first and helps them to identify the bird by telling them about the distinguishing features they should look for, He started off by explaining to a lady sat next to him, and before long he had an audience of about 12 people.

He received a message from a fellow birder, informing him that redpolls were in the tree sparrow farm area. We left the hide and walked back towards the entrance to the reserve.

We were soon able to see, blue, great, long tailed and coal tit.

A pair of bullfinches were also present

The redpolls were in the trees behind the feeders and were difficult to photograph

A very pleasant day thanks to Gerald.