Filey and Bempton.

Visit to the coast to take grand daughter shopping, so fitted some birding in before and after the shopping.

I arrived at Filey Dams about 1030 and found an empty car park. I started at the West hide and a quick scan through my bins showed lots of birds with young. The male mute swan was chasing everything away, even when the bird was not near its 5 young.

he frightened the canada goslings

The latest report is that the swan family has now re located to East Lea, but there are only 3 cygnets, so another 2 have perished.

coots were busy feeding their young. A male shoveler looked good in the bright sunshine

a pair of gadwall were happily feeding until a second male appeared

 after an hour I left the hide and walked towards the central hide. I was amazed to see that the car park was now full, but no one had come into the hide I had been in. Was there a special bird about?

Yes, lots of photographers had turned up to get a picture of this bird

a tawny owl.

From the central hide I saw 3 little egrets together

and a barnacle goose

on my walk to the East hide I heard and saw the following birds

from the hide I could only see some of the birds that I had seen from the other 2 hides. This carrion crow was on the look out for some food

Time to go to Scarborough and shopping. This did not take very long so I was able to do more birding, so decided to go home via Bempton.

a bit cooler than at Filey, so I was glad that I had a coat to wear. Lots of red campion on the reserve

it reminded me of a visit to Shetland when the spring squill was in full bloom. Lots of people had turned up hoping to see the albartross but it had gone out to sea. The gannets were the star of the visit as far as I was concerned.

lots of them were gathering nesting material

I have always assumed that gannets ritual of touching beaks was part of their pair bonding

but then a third bird arrived and the middle gannet started touching bills with it!

perhaps it has several meanings!

Some gannets argued

others were more friendly

fulmars were on the wing

kittiwakes were also gathering nesting material

another reminder of Shetland, Kittiwake Haa on Foula,

razorbills

I did not see any puffins on the cliffs but there were plenty flying at sea. I hope that the people on the cruise had good views.

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.