RSPB Fairburn Ings

 

 I did not visit the Aire Valley yesterday due to the snow, so completed the H&S checks today.

Afterwards I spent some time birding at Fairburn.

Plenty of water at the Lin Dike end of the reserve, some of it has a layer of ice on the top, which resulted in the birds gathering together on the open water.

A line of black-headed gulls on the ice. There were at least greylag and canada geese in the field to the right of this piece of water.

plus a single grey heron.

 A few of the geese were on the water with a couple of whooper swans.

Several great white egrets in the tall vegetation.

a female marsh harrier caught a male teal and landed in the grass to eat it.

Mute swans were on a piece of open water near the footpath

Mallard, teal and gadwall were keeping close to the swans to feed off some of the food that the swans dragged up from the bottom of the water.

After a while I returned to the visitor centre and went to the Pickup hide. On the way I passed the latest pond that the wardens have created. The water in front of the hide is frozen, but blue tits were visiting the sand martin nest holes, presumably for shelter.

Blue, great and coal tits, chaffinch, dunnock and goldfinches were flying back and forth to the feeders.

A pleasant couple of hours in the winter sunshine.