Just time for a walk around Askham Bog, before attending a talk this afternoon. Jonathan Dent, from St. Nicks gave an excellent talk about green corridors.
A lot of vegetation has been removed. Only managed to see blue, great, coal and long tailed tits.
A pleasant sunny afternoon. This was my view from the Geoff Smith hide, over to the left Bubwith Ings was flooded.
I am not sure that you can see the water in this picture. Although the Ings are flooded, only 3 black-headed gulls were on it. I could see some lapwings in the distance on the Carrs, so decided to walk down to the Garganey hide. These are the views from the hide.
I could not see the lapwings from the hide, as they were hidden from view by a row of vegetation.
3 roe deer were busily feeding
A single mute swan landed on the reserve
A very distant male stonechat
Lots of crows flying about, a grey heron looking for food and 2 buzzards in the distance. A peregrine disturbed the lapwings, but when they settled, they were still out of view. About 3.30pm I walked back to the Geoff Smith hide and joined 2 other birders. They were looking at a hornet, which was on one of the windows. One of them left and shortly afterwards Elaine arrived, with he dog for the hearing.
A few starlings flew across the reserve and a pair of wrens were in the brambles to the right of the hide.
Elaine left, and then did the other birder. I stayed for a while in the hope of seeing either a barn owl or some whooper swans fly in, neither showed, so I went home.
After Storm Bert I was not expecting to see sunshine and rainbows when I arrived at Blacktoft Sands.
The lagoons were still full after the recent floods and high tides and the surface water on the lagoons had been frozen. The waterfowl had flown elsewhere and were slowly coming back to the reserve to feed.
Ian arrived in reception so I took the opportunity to walk down to Singleton lagoon to have a look at the work that the team had been doing.
They have cleared away some off the trees and bushes to the right of the hide and built a screen to the left of the hide, so that visitors do not disturb the birds on the water.
They have made the channels in the reed bed wider and deeper and removed an island to the right of the hide.
From the hide I could see a family of mute swans, I wonder how long before the 3 young are chased away by the adults. 30 gadwall were feeding together, and a male bearded tit was in the reed bed to my right. On a clump of floating vegetation a pair of stonechats chased away some pied wagtails.
I returned to reception and Jan, Darren's wife had arrived, so again I took the chance to go to the other hides. Nothing to report from either Marshland or Reedling, so I walked down to Ousefleet. Ian was sat in the hide and we chatted as I added shelduck, teal and shoveler to my day list. A single snipe was resting near the waters edge.
I left the hide and walked to the 5 barred gate and as I looked over the grazing marsh I could see 34 curlew. Suzanne arrived and we chatted for a while about Bluesy, which we have both recently joined. we saw 3 redshank on the grazing marsh and then noticed that the curlews had flown from a field to the left of the floodbank. A fox soon followed, which disturbed the birds again, The fox made its way into the reedbed and the 6 Konic ponies emerged, to graze further up the marsh.
Suzanne went to Ousefleet hide and I returned to reception where Jean and Andrew were having a hot drink.
After reception closed at 4 pm, I walked down to Ousefleet. Ian and two other birders were on their way back to the car park. They had seen 9 marsh harriers in the sky at the same time.
It was now raining and visibility was poor. I managed to see 7 marsh harriers in the sky at the same time.
I hope that the weather improves this week and that we do not get floods after the snow melts.
After completing the regular H&S checks at Fairburn and St. Aidans I decided to have a walk to the screen at Lin Dike.
Most of the water on the lagoon is frozen. A few birds were near the small area of open water.
Black-headed gulls and shelduck were the only birds to be seen. To the right of the screen a grey heron and a great white egret were close together, presumably looking for food in a ditch.
Not sure what kind of day we will have tomorrow, will the storm be as bad as forecast?New laptop, fridge freezer and RSPB York Local Group activities have kept me busy since my last post. Once I get behind with posts, I always find it difficult to catch up. so here goes.
6th November I spent the afternoon in the Lower Derwent Valley. I started at Bank Island .
Lots of winter thrushes in the hedgerow as I walked down to Cheesecake hide. not as much water as on my previous visits, but still plenty of birds. Some of the greylag geese were grazing on the grass to the left of the hide. Wigeon, gadwall and pintail were also grazing.
After a couple of hours I left and drove down to North Duffield Carrs. Still no water on the reserve, but 60 whooper swans feeding in the distance.
Friday the 8th saw me at Redcar. I was hoping to see velvet scoters, but could not find any common ones. Lots of sanderlings at the waters edge.
Tuesday the 12th I was at Filey. I walked along Carr Naze, disturbing a few meadow pipits, linnets and snow buntings. The wind was quite strong and the birds were sheltering on the bay side. A flock of about 30 common scoters were on the sea, just off the end of the Brigg. They kept disappearing from view due to the swell,but I saw enough of them to identify them all as common scoter. A few gannets were still out fishing and a Brent goose flew past.
Saturday the 16th I went to Blacktoft to help Stu with a harrier roost survey.
There had been several high tides and the ditch was full.
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Yesterday. the 20th I went to Hartlepool. When I arrived at 10am according to the weather app on my phone it was sunny, when in reality it was snowing. I sat in the car for about 15 minutes until the snow stopped. it was very windy and the sea was a bit rough.
A group of birders were doing a sea watch but i decided that the weather conditions were too bad. When looking at reports later on I noticed that they had seen several little auks, another chance to reach 200 species for the year missed.Not many birds about due to fishermen on the rocks. No sign of the black guillemot in the harbour, partly due to the fact that border force boats were carrying out an exercise.
Newburn Bridge was my next stop. The ride was going out so no waders close to the footpath.
Sanderlings, ringed plovers, turnstones on the beach unto; a dog walker arrived. He had 2 choices of beach on which to walk. to his right was empty beach for several hundred yards, to his left a beach full of birds and only a short part of the beach before the water met the rocks. He chose to walk left and so all the birds flew off! No sign of a med gull/
My next stop was to try for twite at Seaton Snook. As i walked through the sand dunes I had to avoid several areas where dogs had failed to clean up their owners mess. The tide was out and i could see several people in the area I was hoping to visit, so decided not to walk any further.
RSPB Saltholme was my last stop. A few teal and shoveler were on the two open stretches of water in front of Phil Stead hide. I walked down to Saltholme Pools hide in the hope of seeing a white fronted goose.
Greylag, canada and barnacle geese but no sign of a white front.
A carrion crow was feeding on a dead greylag.
Hoping to get to 200 soon, but keep missing birds. Still enough time before the year end and the current cold weather might encourage a few birds such as little auks to stay a few days.
With Barbara on a recce for a reserve to visit with RSPB York Local Group. We had a cup of tea in the cafe while we studied a map of the reserve, and decided which trail to follow. As they are working on the profile of Meadow Lake we decided to walk around Number 1 Pit Lake, Ribbleton and Nook Pools.
After leaving the Visitor Village, (above photo) we headed for the Lookout hide.
