Welcome to my birding blog - first launched 12th March 2012...
13th-16th April 2017
All [fairly] Quiet on the Eastern Front!
April 13th: Saltholme
Sheila and I went up to Saltholme for the afternoon after working at home. We soon had an alert spoonbill in our scope, swishing its yellow-tipped spoon back and forth before lapsing back into sleep mode. Photographically things were very quiet but here are a few shots of a pair of great crested grebes from Dorman's Pool. It was very breezy and the sun was playing hard to get!
April 14th Blacktoft
I went to Blacktoft just before lunchtime to see what was about. Six warblers heard [sedge, willow, blackcap, whitethroat, Cetti's and chiffchaff] but only sedge warbler seen. Must admit I didn't really bother looking for the willow warbler and chiffchaff as they were singing all around me as were a good number of Cetti's across the reserve. Again, few photos. A konik loomed out of the reedbed...
...and there were a few avocets chasing round Marshland..
Feeling Micawberish: something's bound to turn up soon!
Whistle-stop Yorkshire! - 16th April
I began the day at North Cave. Lots of sand martins, a few swallows. Buzzards; ruff x4; avocets and best of all a single yellow wagtail. Spent a long time getting these sedge warbler photos near the bus stop hide.
I moved on to Blacktoft after circuiting the reserve. Twelve spotted redshank scoped from Reception flew off before I got to Xerox for a photo! So here's some avocets coming in to Marshland.
I was aware that a red-rumped swallow was near The Cut at Fairburn so decided to try for it even though rain had now set in. In the rain and poor light the bird was difficult to:
a: pick out from the sand and house martins
b: hard to get a focus lock on the right bird
c: hard to then follow the right bird which seemed a black silhouette on a grey background
Here's a few which record the fact that I picked the right bird, as one book says, ''with its stuck on tail''.
188 UK 2017
3rd-7th April 2017
Sometimes lady luck is on your side...
...and sometimes she can't be found anywhere!
It's been a bit like that recently: highs and lows. I'll start with a high: my second visit to see the Tophill Low kingfishers on April 3rd. Male and female this time. Male first.
Then the female showed up. As well as the diffferent coloured lower mandible she seems not quite so brightly coloured - more of a blue-green almost.
A brief detour to our garden. Remember the two really harsh, cold winters about 9 years ago? Well, our tender mimosa tree was cut to the ground by the long periods below freezing and the tree disappeared completely as we had to fell it. From below ground it has slowly regrown about 8 feet from where it used to be. Something of the root system enabled it to come back. This April it flowered magnificently once more - a touch of the Mediterranean in Acomb...
Sheila is also very pleased with her sarracenia sp. pitcher plant. Watered daily from below with rain water it has produced a fantastic flower.
Back to my feathered friends...
A couple of days after the kingfishers I went to Freckleton, Lancashire to see a group of seven cattle egrets. I parked off Poolside Lane and headed off along the Lancashire Coastal Mudbath, sorry, footpath to find the Naze Pools. I obviously went about it all wrong, walked twice as far as I needed to and totally exhausted myself. The coastal footpath is a disgrace in the Freckleton area: it is unmarked, covered in rotting timber, piles of plastic and is knee deep in oozing mud. It should have a health warning. There was little evidence this section is much used and I learnt that I approached the pools from the wrong direction. Guess what: by the time I got there the birds had flown off [other words crossed my mind] to Martin Mere. Very tired I trudged back along the roadside round the perimeter of RAF Warton Airfield. Some plane spotters assumed I was a planespotter too with my camera and told me excitedly about Hawks and Typhoons and a Saudi jet. I staggered on hoping for a seat where I could rest a while. One hove into view if seats can do that.
The only photo I took that day.
April 7th: Tophill Low for warblers and a nice duck. Willow warbler, blackcap, chiffchaff all seen; several Cetti's heard. Here's a pair of red crested pochards.
An early orange tip but not the first of the year - we've had three in the garden now.
Wren, treecreeper and pheasant all from Tophill Low.
In the afternoon of April 7th I went to Fairburn Ings and walked the Coal Tip Trail hoping to see the spoonbill down on the Moat. Here's a short video from 'up top'. Sorry it's a bit jerky - my fault in the wind.
Reed bunting and moorhen to finish. Lots of warblers again, including more Cetti's plus a few swallows. No spoonbill, alas.
180 UK 2017
25th-28th March
A March Miscellany
March 25th took Sheila and I to Fairburn Ings, calling first at Acaster to see if the shrike was showing. I wanted photos in better light than last time but although the light was fine, the bird remained tantalisingly distant.
At Fairburn little was seen but here are a couple of views: robin and egret.
On the following day we both went to Tophill Low. We failed to find any red-crested pochard on D reservoir but explored the new visitor centre. It looks good and is well landscaped. A tiny room to one end has opening windows to watch birds. The main room is well equipped with permanent scopes and huge glass windows. Through this glass you can see lots of birds and you can play a game of 'what blurred bird am I looking at?' For keen birders it's useless and birders will be queuing up to use the two slots that open in the annexe. I'll say no more: no doubt it ticks lots of boxes...
At the normal hide where I've watched kingfishers in the past we were recommended to go elsewhere - so we did. Elsewhere was amazing: kingfishers nesting 3 metres away! Here's just a few of the many photos I took.
This pheasant was obviously used to people.
March 27th and an early, misty start to Kildale hoping for wheatear and ring ouzel. Both were seen eventually: the ouzel kept us waiting a long while. The grouse found us humans quite approachable and actually came close to inspect us. One shot makes me smile...
Wheatears x2 plus ouzel very distant [and a mipit].
Finally March 28th at Old Moor - I saw little gull and sand martins a-plenty. Here's a sand martin attempt plus a lesser black-back.
Spring is bursting with goodies. I'm ready for more!
176 UK 2017
10th-15th March 2017
Yorkshire delights
March 10th
Tiggy took me to Wykeham lakes where I saw a drake scoter on the sailing lake and some crossbills in the forest.
Dippers were in Troutsdale.
I headed for Scarborough to see the Mediterranean gulls - larus melanocephalus - which of course means black-headed gull! Here's a few...
The great northern diver was still amputating frogs' legs in the harbour before swallowing the rest in one gulp...
March 13th
I went to Bempton resolved to walk however far I had to to see a corn bunting. Now much of my photography is pretty spontaneous - I like it that way which is why I prefer hand-held still although from time to time I wonder about a big steady tripod...
On this occasion I found the cornbunts in a field about half a mile south-east of Staple Newk.
Brief digression for fulmar and gannets from Staple Newk...
There were just a few puffins about.
Back to the buntings. The birds were feeding on dry material in the south east corner of a large field. I tried to approach following a Defra conservation public footpath [never been on one of those before!] but the birds disappeared into the field. There was one solitary bush which I sort of hid behind for an hour or so. Eventually the birds returned to their favoured spot.
Walking back I was entertained by a group of bold jackdaws.
On the way home I called at the vast Burdale Quarry to look for a little owl. No sign but saw this: hope you can make it out!
March 15th
Barry and I headed into West Yorkshire to Wintersett looking initially for an elusive firecrest. It remained elusive! Here are the substitutes: long-tailed tit and chiffchaff.
Saw my first butterfly of the season there too - a comma and a short while later while driving we saw a male brimstone storming along the roadside.
Female comma hutchinsonii I believe but I'm no expert.
Two encounters with long-tailed ducks that day: one at Calder Wetlands and the other, more distantly on Lemonroyd Lake. We also saw the black-necked grebes and 3 water pipits at the filter beds. Here's the Calder Wetlands bird.
170 UK 2017
3rd-4th March 2017
Two days in my life!
Woke up, fell out of bed,
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup,
And looking up I noticed I was late...
Day 1: Family Fun Day
...just managed to get to the Yorkshire Wildlife Park near Doncaster on time where Sheila and I had been invited to help celebrate my son's and my elder granddaughter's birthdays: one born on March 2nd and the other on March 3rd but some years apart!!
Obviously I took a camera so, slightly different to my normal fare, here are a few zoo snaps. I was impressed by the sense of space - very large enclosures - but not by the weather it was cold and wet. Still, we all had a good time.
Meerkat above; painted dog below.
Best of all for me were the tigers - and they stuck it out in the rain for us!
Day 2: Back to the day job!
Headed north again to my beloved Hartlepool region and in particular to Redcar beach. First of all I parked up near the beach cinema to go look for velvet scoter. I could soon see eider but the scoter were diving and coming up somewhere else or disappearing in the waves...
That's better!
Walking back to the promenade I noticed a few common gulls among the herrings. Two allowed a close approach.
A mile or so further brought me to Foxglove Covert yet again, Marske, hoping for either corn bunting or lapland. Ready for disapppointment I bumped into Martyn Sidwell and we homed in on the preferred 'lump' in the middle of the stubble field.
Foxglove Covert delivers!
Double vision!
I then headed back to Redcar Stray to call on the snow buntings. Three were present and seemed well used to the people, dogs and ice-cream throwing children. The conditions were brighter and calmer than previously and it shows!
I finished my day in the life with a walk along Greatham Creek just with my bins. I hoped to find my first avocets of the year out on Seal Sands and I wasn't disappointed. Five seen but there are more present as I write this.
Found my coat and grabbed my hat
Made it to Tiggy in seconds flat
Found my way inside and had a coke,
Somebody spoke and I went into a dream....
166 UK 2017