Not sure where to go birding today as it was very foggy in York at 5am. Thought about Spurn, but then decided that if it was misty there I might not see a thing. After a couple of phone calls I decided to go to Blacktoft and meet Gerald.
The mist had cleared by the time that we arrived. Robin, blue and great tits and chaffinch in the car park.
Starling, redwing and fieldfare in the flower meadow, tree sparrows at the feeder.
We did not go into the visitor centre as Stu, Rachel and Ian were busy looking after a group of people who had booked an early morning visit, so Ousefleet was our first stop. Looking over the 5 bar gate towards the grazing marsh we saw and heard pied wagtails and greylag geese. On the wat to the hide we met Masha. She was waiting for Pete, who had gone to advise a dog walker that walking on top of the flood bank was scaring away the wildfowl, and that the public footpath is at the bottom of the bank.
From the hide we could see nearly 200 teal, about a dozen shelducks,
several mallards, a few wigeon and a couple of shovelers. Suddenly a whisp of snipe flew over the lagoon. Some settled in the reed bed
while these settled closer to the hide. There were 73 snipe altogether. We also saw snipe from the other hides that we visited, so I think that there could have been over 100 snipe on the reserve. Several lapwing were on the islands and they had a fly around, but we could not see any other waders with them.
Marshland hide was our next stop where we added pochard to our list.
Gerald noticed that the barn owl had come out onto the ledge if front of its box.
After having a preen it flew off over the reedbed. We then went to Reedling hide, from where we saw the barn owl hunting. It never got very close to the hide, but it was good to see it hunting.
The barn owl flew off in the direction of its box, overlooking Ousefleet and Marshland lagoons.
Singleton was our last stop for the day. Here we met three birders who also came from York. They left to go to Marshland in the hope of seeing the barn owl. We enjoyed watching 4 whooper swans preening.
We left about 4pm and hope to meet tomorrow at Old Moor. A very pleasant day with Gerald.
No comments:
Post a Comment