Last shift of Summer

 

This was my view from Ousefleet hide at 0730 on Saturday 28th September. RSPB Blacktoft Sands has now reverted to winter opening times. The reserve is open every day but the visitor centre is now only open on a weekend, and Saturday was my last shift of the summer season.

Strange morning. I had just taken this picture when Stu sent a message asking if the road to the reserve was open?  It seems that after I drove past the church at Whitgift, a road closed sign appeared.

Stu managed to drive to the reserve but other visitors had to drive via Crowle, a long way round. We were not expecting to be busy due to the appearance of a rare bird at Bempton, but the road closure added another dimension.

However the road closure did not last long and lots of visitors arrived to take advantage of the sunshine.

Those that ventured down to Ousefleet were rewarded with close views of about 20 bearded tits.

The lagoons are quite full due the last weeks high tides, so birds are close together.

These sleeping teal and a snipe were on one of the islands at Marshland.

There were several hundred teal on the reserve along with mallard, wigeon and gadwall.

Male shovelers are starting to come out of eclipse.

A few spotted redshanks were on Reedling lagoon along with lapwing, snipe and redshanks.

A grey heron was soaking up the morning sun at 1st lagoon

Not many small birds about, A single swallow flew over the VC  and 9 whooper swans flew NE, very high up.

I ended my shift in Singleton hide. A few marsh harriers came into roost and some mallard landed just before 7pm when it was time for me to lock up.

RSPB Fairburn Ings

 

Not the best weather for birdwatching. In between showers I manage a spot of birding.

I started at Lin Dike. Lots of greylag geese flying about, a great white egret on one of the flashes and a cattle egret with the highland cattle. Lots of teal, lapwings and black headed gulls.

A heavy shower of rain moved me to the Pickup screen near the visitor centre. Lots of small birds at the feeders.

Back at the reserve on Tuesday with RSPB York Local Group, when I hope that the weather is better.

Hoopoe

 

I was not expecting this to be on my list of jobs for today.

Year tick 194 at Stamford Bridge.

Also there were Malcolm, David, Andy and Chris.

Red- breasted flycatcher and Great grey shrike.

 A very autumnal morning on Hartlepool Headland. Drizzle and mist was the weather offering, so I was hoping that the weather conditions would mean that birds would not be moving far. A great grey shrike had been reported at the Headland, so I was optimistic.

I started at the tennis courts but other birders told me that it had flown off towards the church. I joined another group in Olive Street who were looking for a yellow- browed warbler. It was a nice surprise to see Chris Downes arrive to join us. Before the pandemic we had spent may an hour in the area birding, especially on January 1st. The warbler was proving difficult to see so we walked to the bowling green and joined others looking for the shrike.

After a few minutes waiting in the rain we were rewarded with good views of the bird. I could not see it at first, but Chris soon told me where to look. The bird flew down to the ground before returning to the tree and then flying off again. Year tick for both of us.

Chris suggested that we try the putting green next, so he drove there whilst I chose to walk and check on a few places on the way. There were 2 groups of birders in the area. 1 were looking for warblers near the Boro Hall without any luck, so we joined others in the putting green. There were several birds in the trees and bushes, and as people called out where they were I found it a bit confusing. Eventually we all seemed to be watching a red-breasted flycatcher and ignoring a pied fly and a lesser whitethroat. The bird was moving from tree to tree but every now and again it was visible as it perched on leafless branches. Another year tick for both us. Mark and Carol turned up and soon saw the bird, year tick 199 for Mark.

We decided to go back to near the Heugh Battery and do a spot of sea watching. We joined 2 other birders who had been there a while, but had seen nothing special, mainly due to the mist. Visibility gradually improved and we saw gannets, sandwich terns, red-throated diver and then Chris saw an arctic skua, quite close to the shore. A year tick for him, which left him 1 behind my year total.

Chris decided to go back to the putting green to see if any other birds had been found. I stayed hoping to see more skuas but to no avail. I drove to RSPB Saltholme while Chris stayed to try to get some picture of the flycatcher. He joined me in the Phil Stead hide and showed me a good picture he had managed to take.

In front of the hide we saw, snipe, ruff, curlew, black-tailed godwits, moorhens and teal.

 

A good day, and a pleasant reminder of some excellent days birding with Chris.

Full lagoons at Blacktoft

 

This weeks high tides have had the desired effect and the lagoons all have water in them. This is what Ousefleet looked like about 4pm on Friday afternoon.

Yellow wagtails, lapwings, and a couple of hundred greylag geese were enjoying their new conditions.

At the other end of the reserve

greenshank, ruff, avocet, green sandpiper, ringed plover and black-tailed godwits were busy feeding.

Pink footed geese were constantly flying over and their call filled the autumn air.

Blacktoft and North Duffield Carrs

 Saturday the 14th and I arrived at RSPB Blacktoft to man the visitor centre for the day. The air and skies were full of pink-footed geese, several thousands of them. The above photo is about a 50th of the birds in the area. They were in a field just across the road from the reserve so their call was the background noise all day, until late afternoon when a lot returned to roost along the Humber.

Lots of visitors to the reserve, so I did not get chance to do any birding during the day. After 5pm Catherine and I went to Singleton hide and joined some other birders looking at the waders. Ruff, redshank, black-tailed godwits and a marsh harrier. When Catherine left for home I went down to Marshland hide. A single avocet was present and it was limping as it walked about looking for food. A green sandpiper was also present.

The sun was setting as I locked up at 7pm.

Sunday was a very busy day at the football club with a dozen matches, mostly played in heavy rain. One of my nephews came for a bacon butty as he had brought his son, who was playing for one of the visiting teams.

After lunch today, I decided to go down the Lower Derwent Valley. Bank Island was very quite, no water to see and only a grey heron poking its head above the vegetation.

I drove down to North Duffield Carrs where I met Elaine. We walked down to the viewing screen, erected by the Carstairs Coutryside Trust. We hoped to see stonechat, but had to make do with black-headed gulls catching flying insects and a pair of buzzards calling as they soared overhead.

I walked to the Geoff Smith hide and Elaine, along with her trainee dog for the hearing followed shortly afterwards. No sign of any birds on the scrape but a marsh harrier was hunting over the reserve and we could see several buzzards in the distance.

Elaine walked down to the Garganey hide with her dog and I remained in the hide. I heard a loud  splash and could see ripples in the water and assumed it must have been a fish. Then I heard the call of a kingfisher and saw this male perched on a reed in front of the hide.

it sat there for a few minutes, looking around and then it dived into the water and emerged with a fish.

I was expecting it to manoeuvre the fish so that it could swallow it head first, but instead it flew off still carrying the fish in its beak.

I then left the hide and walked towards the garganey hide I met Elaine on the way there as she was going home. 

 This deer was in the field next to the path and soon jumped over a fence and disappeared from view.

Not much to see from the hide, the farmer was busy gathering in the bales of hay and lots of rooks were busy looking for insects in the grass field.. A pleasant 2 hours.

Pied flycatcher at Hartlepool Headland

 

Sunny but windy at Hartlepool Headland today. I arrived  about 1030 and joined other birders on a seawatch. Sandwich terns, gannets,  guillemots, eiders, arctic skuas but no shearwaters.

After a couple of hours I put my fold up chair back in the car and had a walk around the Headland.

Oystercatchers, ringed plover, turnstone, redshank, eider and cormorants on the rocks that were exposed as the tide went out.

I met another birder near Croft Gardens and he had seen a pied flycatcher. I waited a while and saw it fly into a nearby tree. Year tick 191.

The bird was flitting from branch to branch so I was lucky to get this photo.

I called in at Saltholme on my way home and went to the Phil Stead hide. The hide was full as people were watching the waders.

Black-tailed godwits were close to the hide and further away was a single bar-tailed godwit.

At least 2 greenshanks, several ruff, dunlin and ringed plovers. A pleasant way to spend an hour before going home.

Hobby and Whinchat at YWT Staveley

 

Traffic in York is a nightmare at the moment. Having collected the daughter from work and taken her home, I had planned to go east but ended up going west so as not to have to crawl across the city.

Nice sunny morning when I arrived at Staveley, the wind was a bit strong and it was cool when not in the sunshine. From the first hide I saw lots of greylag geese with a single swan with them feeding. When it lifted its head out of the water, I was surprised to see it was a whooper swan. Has it been there all summer or is it an early visitor from Iceland?

From the next hide I saw a large family of mute swans.

I have not seen many swan families this year, I don't know if the wet spring had an effect on them, however there were 7 young in this family group. The next hide is closed for safety reasons, a chap I met in the car park told me that there had been a spate of vandalism

I walked across the reserve to the other hide.

Lots of greylag and canada geese and lapwings.

On my way back to the first hide I saw this holly bush with lots of bees on the flowers and at least 7 red admiral butterflies.

Large numbers of speckled wood butterflies on nearby brambles

This large caterpillar was crossing the path.

I have no idea what it is.

From the first hide I saw a hobby chasing dragonflies. After catching a few it landed in this tree

It never got any closer, this is very very heavily cropped!

If you try hard you might just be able to make it out, It is perched on the middle branch!

As I was watching the hobby, I noticed something fly in front of me. A whinchat had landed on a fence post.

Not a brilliant picture due to the distance from the hide, plus the vegetation kept blowing in front of the bird.

A pleasant few hours in between traffic jams!

Filey and Bempton

 

The above was my view from the car park hide at Filey Dams on Monday morning at 8am.

Green and common sandpiper in front of the hide and grey herons all over the place, fishing must be good .Due to the direction of the wind, it was not pleasant viewing in the hides as the wind was blowing straight in to the windows, so I walked round to East Lea.

No wind blowing in the windows, however the smell from the pig farm was a bit unpleasant.

Lots of waders on the far island

black-tailed godwits, snipe, curlew, common sandpiper, ruff, dunlin, lapwing, curlew sandpiper and a little stint. The lapwings kept flying off and this occasionally caused the other waders to join them. A kestrel flew over which put everything up, and then a sparrowhawk landed on a fence post and watched for a while before leaving.

During the disturbances the waders would get a bit closer to the hide.

 A single wigeon was also near the hide

After a couple of hours I left, had a brief chat with Judith at the entrance gate and walked back to my car at the Dams. A quick visit to the three hides did not result in any new birds for my day list.

Carr Naze was my next stop.

A strong wind was blowing and after a short chat with George who was doing a spell of sea watching, I walked around the wood at the top of the country park. Due to the strong wind everything was keeping out of sight.

I then drove to Bempton Cliffs and spent a couple of hours sitting looking into the Dell.

Wood pigeons, blackbird, swallows, tree sparrows, a whitethroat and a blackcap.

Just over a month to the ringing at Flamborough when I hope to see more newly arrived birds.