Back home again.

 After 10 days away I had lots of jobs to do so no birding for the last two days. This morning I had to go into York so took the chance to go and see the peregrines at the Minster. The male bird was perched on the right hand side of the North Tower

He had a bit of a stretch as her turned round. The female left the ledge where the nest tray is and she returned a few minutes later.

That was the end of the action! Both birds remained on their chosen perch and did not move. As I was watching them I saw my first swifts of the year, tick number 170.

Mull Day One.

 Please see the Mull 2022 page

Oban

 

Heavy rain at times on our journey from Ayr to Oban. Cloudy and sunny intervals since we arrived.

Hooded crow and black guillemots in the harbour got the holiday off to a good start.

Will I be lucky enough to see Manx shearwaters on the ferry trip to Mull tomorrow?

Filey

 Before I head off to Mull tomorrow, I had agreed to take my grand daughter shopping, As usual I try to plan a bit of birding in with the trip to the coast, so todays plan was to go Filey Dams. Weather not too brilliant, traffic reasonable until I reached the Malton bypass. It was closed!! A long slow crawl through Malton and just to add to the mix a lorry was parked on one side of the road loading scaffolding posts, so we had to leave a gap in our line of traffic to allow lorries to pass. I should have been at the Dams about 1020, got there at 1110.

The car park was full so I drove to East Lea instead. I heard a sedge warbler near a seat, but could not see it. From the hide I could see several families of greylag geese and one family of mallard, with just 3 ducklings. A herring gull was sat on a nest on the island and 2 teal were also on the island, having a sleep.

There were 3 oystercatchers and I could not work out if they were a pair plus 1 or 3 singletons. A pair of swallows swooped low over the water hunting for insects.

Back to the Dams to eat lunch. Chatted to the member of YWT staff who works out the office in York, which is not far away from my house. Lots of herring gulls, 3 lesser black backs, a shelduck who chased everything away and carrion crows looking for eggs and chicks. When the gulls had had a wash they would stand on the edge of the bund and have a preen. As I scanned the row of them I saw a wader, it was a bar tailed godwit, tick number 150 for the year!

Time to go to Scarborough, luckily I was heading north along the coast road as the police had closed the south bound section!!

After shopping we usually go for something to eat and have a walk around the harbour.

Not today there was a heavy downpour of rain. 

On my travels tomorrow.

Bank Island and North Duffield

 Not enough time or energy to walk around Wheldrake, so Bank Island and North Duffield were my next choice. Lapwing, red legged partridge, male shoveler and a pair of pheasants were the only birds on view from the first hide. On my way to the second hide a whitethroat was singing from the top of a hawthorn bush.

The water level is slowly going down so even less habitat for the ducks and geese. A male swan, 4 shelduck, several teal and mallard were on the water, while lapwing patrolled the air, dive bombing what appears to be an ever increasing number of carrion crows. After a while Stuart joined me in the hide, He had been on Wheldrake with Duncan Bye and had seen a male garganey among other birds.

Shortly after Stuart arrived, another birder came into the hide and after a few minutes he saw a male garganey that had just flown in. I left soon after as I did not have a lot of time.

This is the view I had from the Geoff Smith hide. A pair of mute swans were doing some repairs to their nest before changing over.

The vegetation in front of their nest is too high for me to see if they had any eggs in the nest. Closer to the hide a pair of coots have a nest and it was family feeding time.

A curlew was calling and did a couple of circuits of the scrape before landing in the far left hand edge of the water. I always enjoy hearing and watching curlews but I was rather pleased to see this bird as it had a damaged leg and I hoped that it might have been the same bird I saw earlier in the year.

As I said the curlew landed at the far edge of the scrape and as I watched it I saw a bird fly behind it and into the hedge. I used my scope to find it and it was a female reed bunting, perhaps it was going to its nest? Hello, what is the other bird in the hedge? It was a male whinchat, my first one of the year, tick number 149.

A sedge warbler was singing from a hawthorn bush.

I could see at least 50 swans in the further part of the reserve so decided to walk down to the garganey hide. On the way a male chaffinch perched on a post long enough for me to get a photo.

Very little water  to be seen from the hide. The nearest birds were 6 greylag geese, 2 of which had young and had to keep chasing the other geese away from them.

A wren was making alarm calls in front of the hide, so I left as I did not want to be the cause of their alarm. Back in the Geoff Smith hide I could see sand and house martins and swallows, but no sign of any swifts. Time to go home, but before I left the reserve I had a walk to the new viewing screen.

No birds to be seen but plenty of flowers.

When I reached the car park, my friend Chris Downes had just arrived. It was very nice to see him and have a chat. I am looking forward to his latest blog:chrisdownesbirds.

Scarborough on Wednesday.

Sunday afternoon at Blacktoft

 I was unable to spend all yesterday at Blacktoft so it was 1pm when I arrived to help Stu. The road from Goole to the reserve is closed during  week days from 9am till 4pm for road repairs, but the road closed signs remain up at weekends. This may have deterred a few visitors. 

As I walked into the visitor centre I saw a bittern flying from Xerox lagoon and land near Townend lagoon and there were 6 bearded tits in the reedbed between the visitor centre and Xerox hide.

Lots of birdsong for visitors to listen to. Whitethroat, blackcap, willow warbler, chiffchaff, sedge warbler and cetti's warbler. Two cuckoos were also on site and could be heard calling.

I took the above picture at 1830 and there were signs of activity in the barn owl box. A grey heron was close to the hide

On my way home I saw these two cranes in a field near Swinefleet, just a short flight from Thorne Moors for them.

Bank Island

 After taxi jobs and some shopping for next weeks holiday I managed to get to Bank Island late afternoon. From the first hide I could see a shoveler, several lapwing and 2 redshanks. A curlew flew in

had a few drinks of water and then walked to where the water was deeper for a bath, then flew off again.

This is the view from the second hide, still a bit of water available for the birds, but it is a fair distance away from the hide.

Lapwings were doing acrobatics and then spend some time feeding.

a female mallard was chased by 4 males, wherever she went they followed.

she flew off with the males in pursuit. Mute swan, grey herons, shelducks, shovelers, teal, a single snipe and 2 swallows made up my list for the couple of hours I spent there.