After a busy morning at football, I decided to have a couple of hours birding. I left home with the intention of trying to see yellow wagtails and woodlark. However on my journey through York I decided that I would just go to Bank Island and sit on the viewing platform and have a couple of hours lazy birding.
Andrew was in the car park and he was going to the hide until he saw the path was flooded, so we both ended up on the viewing platform.
As you can see from the photo, there was plenty of water at Bank Island and we could see over to Wheldrake, where again wellies were needed to get to the hides. Plenty of water means that the birds have lots of choice as to where to be and apart from 23 tufted ducks and a similar number of coots, there were few birds about.
Lots of goldfinches flying about. Settling on wires, flying down to eat dandelion seeds. A blackcap was singing but we were unable to locate it. Eventually we spotted it in the mature sycamore in front of us and later on I just managed this shot of a female before she too moved on.
Tick 149 for the year, would I get to 150 today?
A pair of grey partridge flew in and ran off into the long grass
A chiffchaff had been singing all the time that we were there and then suddenly appeared behind us
A pair of pied wagtails landed on a trailer in front of the platform
It was now approaching 4:30 and Andrew left, jokingly saying that I had not better see a red necked grebe or osprey!!
then at 5.15pm an osprey appeared!
Quite high up and the light conditions were awful, but I managed a couple of shots.
What a bird to get on a lazy Sunday birding trip and number 150 for this year as well.
I need to avoid Andrew now!!
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