Sidetracked

 Plan A was to do a seawatch, but car problems ruled that out. After doing some jobs at home I went to Wheldrake Ings. The plan was to go as far as the Tower Hide to see if I could find the often reported whinchat. I planned to leave at 4pm and go to Toms Ponds for a couple of hours and arrive home about 6pm.

However I was surprised to see a farmer at work cutting hay. I thought that this might disturb the whinchats, but as the tractor was not near the Tower hide I carried on.

 When I arrived at the Tower hide I discovered that there were 2 farmers busy cutting hay!

So I decided to stay for a while before walking to Bank Island and Toms Ponds. Having watched 17 red kites circle over a field of freshly cut hay near Tadcaster, I hoping for something similar on Wheldrake Ings. Only 3 red kites, a buzzard and 3 lesser black-backed gulls arrived, but they kept me entertained for three hours.

As the tractors cut the grass in front of the hide and made their way towards the wind pump, the birds flew close to look for food.

The buzzard was happy to sit a bit further away and watch events.

The kites on the other hand were very active. Sadly the sun did not shine so the photos are a bit on the dark side, plus the birds came so close to the hide I could not focus, and then they would suddenly swoop down low over the mown grass looking for prey. The gulls kept circling but at a greater height.

Further  away on the Ings lots of corvids.

The tractors disturbed deer

Before I knew it is was 4pm and I had not seen any sign of a whinchat, however I had been so busy  watching the kites, gulls and buzzards I had not tried to find them. As I scanned the grass that had not been cut, I came across two juveniles perched on umbellifers about 100 yards in front of the hide. The farmers were cutting either side of this area. Having seen the birds I decided to walk to Bank Island.

Lots of flowers for butterflies and other insects.

The water in front of the first hide is slowly evaporating, but still manages to attract redshank

and one of the 2 green sandpipers

There is still a reasonable amount of water on the other 3 pools, so they may attract more waders.

This is the view from the Cheesecake hide, still a lot of water. A mute swan family, mallards and I think the lapwing family from Toms Ponds were using it. A grasshopper warbler had been reported from this area, so I scanned in the hope of another year tick. No warblers but another whinchat. This time a bit closer.

It was just about in the range of my 600mm lens.

A pleasant afternoon and year tick number 178.