Welcome to my birding blog - first launched 12th March 2012...
19th March-4th April 2023
Meeting up with some old friends...
It's probably just me but when I'm out birding and I see a species I haven't seen for a while I feel reassured that in spite of everything going on in the world some things are still ok. Well, just about.
March 19th: Bempton Cliffs and a drive down to Kilnsea
I hadn't yet seen razorbills or puffins so they were birds I hoped to spot. I was lucky to spot several separate groups of red partridge on my drive towards Bridlington and a skylark as I approached the reserve. I also saw kittiwakes as well as the two auk species.
A barn owl was flying near the car park at Kilnsea Wetlands.
March 21st: Adwick-upon-Dearne
A drake garganey was reported and found quite easily as a group of birders were staring hopefully at something in a pool some yards from the main path.
The garganey was fast asleep to the right of the teal. After about half an hour I decided to go for a walk hoping the bird might stir itself later. I saw chiffchaffs, quite a few avocets, tufted ducks and some black-tailed godwits.
Blackthorn
The garganey meanwhile woke up and flew across to the main pool.
March 24th: Oliver's Mount, Scarborough
Named after Oliver Cromwell but any connection with the great man is almost certainly apocryphal. Still the site provides a great view over the town and sea and was the ideal spot to watch the high speed flypasts of two alpine swifts. I wasn't having a good day as I panicked when I parked the car and discovered I had no phone, no wallet and no pager. I began to search the car but I soon realised the missing items were at home. I had simply forgotten them. Fortunately I had a couple of pounds in the car and plenty of diesel to get me home. Attempts to photograph the swifts didn't go well. The Canon R7 has its flaws and I struggle with the electronic viewfinder to follow fast moving birds against any complex or changing background. These are alpine swifts but I hope for better pictures one day....this year's influx was very unusual.
Oh well. You can't win them all! Still a good tick and great to watch in the bins.
I saw ruff at North Cave later that day and on March 27th after not seeing the ring-necked duck I watched some other photographers trying to photograph four bearded tits. It looked hopeless and I didn't linger. It was raining.
March 28th and 31st: Blacktoft Sands
Quiet afternoons at Blacktoft with the regular birds. But a couple of nice surprises too. The R7 was in a good mood that day .... or perhaps I was!
Redpoll by Reception
Pied wagtail in flight at Marshland
Something disturbed the birds at Reedling hide
April 3rd: Grouse and Hartlepool
I drove up to Langdon Beck to see black grouse. Only two birds seen distantly from the road side. I headed to Cow Green reservoir.
Kittiwakes at the lifeboat station. One bird was showing off its jewellery!
A firecrest at the Putting Green in Hartlepool was too quick for the camera to lock on to due to the many branches that were in the way but a sleeping little gull at Saltholme kept me sitting watching it until I decided to move on. All it ever did was move its head. Apparently five minutes before I arrived it was flying around but was being pestered by the black-headed gulls. Once on the ground they left it alone.
April 4th: North Cave
Little owl through the scope and little ringed plover also [but not at the same location]. LRP on Cell 2a; owl down in trees by the farm.
Ruff, lesser black-backed gull, shelduck, avocet, reed bunting and coltsfoot!
152 UK 2023
2nd - 15th March 2023
Waiting for Spring...
Things have gone rather quiet lately here in Yorkshire coupled with some unpleasant weather...
March 2nd: North Cave
A few trips to North Cave this month didn't really deliver although I did spend some time there peering down into the reeds to try and see a bittern as it crept almost horizontally through the dead reeds. I did see the bittern but attempts at a photograph were a complete failure! A water rail in the same spot did show.
A couple of other birds from North Cave...
...plus an unusual iris from the garden.
March 15th: Blacktoft Sands
A nice afternoon at Blacktoft with plenty of things to see. Plus a particularly good sighting within reach of my lens. More of which a little later.
People don't photograph greylags because, I expect, they're rather ordinary. So I don't suppose the next bird would be too popular either but it's a bird, it's living its life and we should still respect it.
A few ducks
Greylags again and a huddle of snipe
A mute swan
Marsh harriers
Sitting in Singleton Hide these four geese sailed into view from behind the large island to the right of the middle channel. They came closer and closer. Here they are. Russian white-fronted geese.
133 UK 2023
20TH -23rd February 2023
A Brace of Rather Good Sightings
20th February: near Wykeham Plant Nursery
Report the previous day of a black-throated thrush obviously disturbed many birders from their winter hibernation and it was easy to find where the bird was the following morning with so many telescopes trained on a certain tree...
It was very apparent that I had the wrong lens on the camera but at least I had record shots of the bird. I really struggled to get anything decent of the bird on the ground. Oh well, you live and learn!
Also seen nearby: celandine and early dandelion.
23rd February: Bishop Middleham and Holme Fleet, Hartlepool
Fourmarts Lane, Bishop Middleham for the second time. Met the same chap staring up at the hornbeams. He'd already seen the bird earlier in the morning. I was going to be patient - the day was nice and bright which somehow gave me belief in the possible...
Here it is: my little hawfinch feature. Thrilled me and the new camera performed amazingly.
The bird was eating the fruit of the hornbeam. This is a little brown nutlet enclosed in a papery wrapper. That's what you see in the next photo.
Walking back I spotted catkins. These are not hazel catkins but alder catkins.
Two Egyptian geese seen later that day at Holme Fleet but rather distant.
Sunday February 26th: Two lesser redpoll at North Cave from viewing platform.
128 UK 2023
4th February-13th February 2023
Here, There and nearly Everywhere!
I'll start at the very beginning...
February 4th: Stoneybeck Lake; Holme Fleet
A brief visit to Stoneybeck Lake near Bishop Middleham to look for the two ruddy shelducks reported there. They were seen very distantly. The photos were actually taken later on February 13th when I passed on another trip.
Same day, at Newburn Bridge, I watched a single dunlin among the ringed plovers but it remained steadfastly fast asleep so I didn't try to photograph it. North of the pipeline at Holme Fleet I spotted a miserable looking great white egret out on the marsh.
February 5th: Bank Island
A brief call at the Tower Hide by the centre where I watched a group of 4 tundra bean geese. Hiding in short reeds eventually they swam out into full view. Watched with a scope.
February 6th: Blacktoft
The new Reedling hide
An afternoon visit. Wigeon in the sunshine.
A barn owl flew past the new Reedling hide. Farewell Xerox! The owl eventually hid in the scrub by the hide. My camera was unable to distinguish the bird properly because of all the branches obstructing the view.
February 7th: Wykeham Raptor Watchpoint; Hilla Green; Tophill Low
One goshawk watched as it headed slowly west along the valley top. Plenty of crossbill sightings along with chaffinches and siskins.
From there I drove to Hilla Green hoping for a dipper. I got out of the car and walked over to the bridge. A dipper was on a stone in the middle of the river. I went back to the car for my camera. When I returned the bird had left and was not seen again although I waited quite a while. Moral: always take the camera with you!
To end my day out I drove to Bempton but all the auks had left again as they do at this time of year. Solitary gannet photo!
So I decided to pop down to Tophill Low as I thought there would be time to walk to North Hide and see if any kingfishers were about. Nearly everything has changed north of the centre but the hide was still there. I settled down on my own to watch and wait.
A kingfisher did appear but stayed some way off. A pair of Cetti's warblers were chasing among the dead reed flattened on the island [well, I assume it's an island] in front of the hide.
February 10th: Lemonroyd Sewage Works and Swillington Ings
Eventually a water pipit was seen along with a single meadow pipit and a multitude of pied wagtails. A couple of chaffinches, a few magpies and a lone grey wagtail made up the full cast. I left and drove the short drive over to Methley. Walking in along the causeway I can't logically justify it but when I start at the causeway end I think I'm at Swillington Ings but when I park up by 'Oddjob' it's St. Aidan's!
Anyway, I eventually located the black-necked grebe. A friendly birder told me where to go but I couldn't find the bird at all nor could a chap on a bike. Wrong information or, of course, the bird flew. They do that! I walked rather vaguely to the areas where I had seen them in previous years...
...a few shovelers attracted me when, suddenly, a black-necked grebe popped up alongside the shovelers and tufted ducks.
February 11th: In our garden.
After a long birdwatch from our back bedroom window I was rewarded with my first goldcrest of the year.
Mimosa [acacia dealbata] in our garden. Can't be many miomosa trees like this as far north as we are.
February 12th: Fairburn Ings
A brief visit to a reserve that seems somewhat neglected. Empty feeders, more than one path closed off. Reeds at Pickup hide were the only sign of life plus a great spotted woodpecker who was noisily excavating the very top of a dead tree. Somehow it managed to be almost invisible to the family that were trying to locate it.
Rufforth Lakes
I've seen Tweets calling them this. There are 4 lagoons. Only birds I saw that day were tufted ducks, mallards and coots.
February 13th: Bishop Middleham; Willington Water Treatment Works and Sandhaven Beach, South Shields
I spent a couple of hours on Fourmarts Lane, Bishop Middleham craning my neck up into the hornbeam trees to try to spot a hawfinch. Neither I nor any of the other five birders saw anything other than long-tailed tits and blue tits. A song thrush was quite confiding on the grass.
Willington Water Treatment Works produced the Pallas's warbler, goldcrests and bullfinches accompanied by the noise of parakeets. The warbler stayed behind the blue fence, often low down, and no-one was able to get a photo while I was there. Others have done really well. A bullfinch was proudly shaking a leaf in its bill [or was it trying to get rid of it?]
Sandhaven Beach at South Shields is often good for snow buntings. I couldn't find any near the pier or on the rocks but eventually along the path that fronts the dunes I found four. They were very much in the shade and flighty.
A pristine herring gull...
...and some runaway sanderlings.
Not sure where I took this. Hazel catkin. Male catkins plus a tiny red female flower. The female flowers often occur separate from the males.
122 UK 2023
9th January -28th January 2023
I just love to be out birding...
January 9th: Bempton Cliffs were quiet apart from the fulmars that were already well-established on the cliffs.
A robin sang to me in the car park and linnets were flying around over the set-aside crop area.
Goldfinches on the wire at the set-aside.
January 11th: Lockwood Beck feeder station held the usual regular birds plus a few bramblings.
Siskin
January 18th: Cowpen Bewley and Saltholme
Treecreeper, tree sparrow
Yellowhammer
January 18th: Seaton Snook and Saltholme
Twite photos were not really any good but these are twite in flight. You may just about detect their yellowish bills...
...but I was quite pleased with the golden plover photos as it's not a bird I have ever found it easy to approach.
Lunch break. Starling in the car park at Newburn Bridge.
Fox on the ice at Saltholme
January 18th: The Zinc Works Road and Saltholme
Grey partridges. The partridge were really distant and the photos are extreme crops. I'm impressed you can tell they are grey partridges!
Stonechat
I called briefly at Cowpen Bewley.
A water vole showed nicely at Saltholme Wildlife Watchpoint.
January 20th: A largely uneventful afternoon visit to Blacksoft Sands.
January 22nd: Saltholme again! Mallard and water rail on the ice
January 24th: Bempton Cliffs
Fulmars, very distant gannets. I was grateful to the two RSPB guides who pointed out the shag swimming in the deep shade below the cliffs.
A bridled bird
January 27th: A brief afternoon visit to Swillington Ings, starting at the Methley end. The causeway was stilll flooded and I retreated. Grey wagtail and meadow pipit at Lemonroyd sewage station but no sign of water pipit.
A light engine provided the only photo of the day!
I drove round to Oddjob but there was little to see.
January 28th: Ingleby Barwick and The Rings. The waxwings were found relatively easily but getting decent pictures was difficult as the birds were perching in rather dense hawthorn and ash so I got lots of pictures like this one!
Quite happy with these!
107 UK 2023