Welcome to my birding blog - first launched 12th March 2012...
Late May 2015
Wings!
Including a duke, a big red damsel, a skipper, an orange-tipless and I call in on Mr Montagu again!
Blacktoft on Sunday 17th was cool and breezy but that seems to be the norm this spring. Temperatures a bit below average but, if I'm honest, overall the birding has been pretty good. Just some of the regulars have eluded me so far. Main culprits: green woodpecker and grey partridge!
Not to worry. Here's a good spot from Sunday. As I drove down the 'bumpy road' across the fields to Whitgift church I stopped Tiggy to look at some birds on wires across the road. A yellowhammer flew off. This one didn't.
Keys-a-rattling!
At Blacktoft gadwalls and marsh harrier mix!
Gadwall... and shelduck coming straight at the hide.
Later a sedge warbler was picking at the cow parsley outside the hide.
On Monday 18th I went up to South Gare to see a little stint on the beach. Easily found from the car park in the scope but much more difficult once I was down on the beach level with the many sanderlings, dunlin and probably at least 60 ringed plovers. I gave up and then found the stint again as soon as I was able to look down on the birds from the car park through the scope and pick out the smaller bird with those white tramlines down its back. Needless to say, no photos.
Next I walked round Castle Eden Dene - a tiring walk with a few climbs but magnificent woodland. Not many birds: blackcaps and nuthatches the best sightings. A single stem of white bluebell amidst all the millions of bluebells in this huge site makes me think this was no garden reject but a genuine mutation.
The primroses were on the white side but this is part of the normal colour range for wild primroses.
I wandered to Dorman's Pool but it was too windy for the warblers to show. Swifts screamed overhead. I decided to try a few flight shots.
Perhaps the best...
On the 20th I spotted this female locally. It's an orange-tip butterfly.
Friday 22nd took me to Blacktoft for the afternoon. A bittern in flight was nice but the highlight was a better view of the male Montagu's harrier. marsh harriers got in on the act too!
Look at those long wings.
May 23rd - second walk at Bolton Abbey. Still no sign of a wood warbler but some nice things. Four spotted flycatchers seen. None photographed. Common sandpiper.
Pied fly.
Dipper.
Grey wagtail in the dark tanglewood by the river.
A fledgling nuthatch hovered in front of my face begging for food. Here it is.
I saw a few treecreepers.
I spent some time watching a very pale, greyish warbler. A pallid willow warbler I reckon.
I drove north to Bowesfield Marsh. This jackdaw was quite tame.
At Dorman's large red damselflies and dingy skippers were on show!
Along with mating common blues.
A common tern was fishing at Saltholme.
Shangri-la
I drove to Shangri-la on the 24th May and climbed the mountain till I reached the gateway to the magical kingdom.
A path leads just slightly uphill into the primroses.
I met his highness the Duke there. The Duke of Burgundy, I mean.
A meadow pipit provided an escort as I left and made my way back down.
13th-16th May 2015
Knocking about again!
Wednesday 13/5 took me to Wykeham for a Balearic woodchat shrike. The splitters are at it again! Certainly some birders count it for their 500 list [as I was told] and Lee Evans seems to accept it. Anyway 'twas a pretty thing...
Like all shrikes, it loved to perch up high looking for its next victim coming off the dung heap.
It went down onto the road too.
I'll finish with a bit of a puzzle. Ok, shrike, blue tit, chaffinch and what else?
Thursday14th May
I kept thinking about going to see this nasal saddled lesser scaup but it didn't really appeal much. However I had a spare afternoon so I went to where it had been reported. No sign but found eventually on sailing club slipway [club closed].
Also this week, but not photographed: curlew sandpipers at Newington Flash near Bawtry; stunning male golden oriole, same day, at Gibraltar Point - but a bit too distant for a photo; spoonbill lurking inside the cormorant colony on the Moat at Fairburn Ings.
220 UK 2014
9th-10th May 2015
Two days in May
Saturday 9th May
Barry and I set off around lunchtime to try to catch up with dotterel on Danby Beacon. Our initial arrival looked disappointing but after cresting the brow of the hill and dropping down a little we espied a line of cars... Now any seasoned birder [twitcher, maybe] knows what that means! Target birds!
We drove on following a tortuous route towards Sutton Bank where I hoped to see the turtle doves again. The timing would be about right when we were likely to arrive. En route I spotted a whinchat and managed a snap from the car.
The doves were spotted whilst Barry was elsewhere so I hoped they'd still be there when he got back. Siskins were in the trees near the cafe feeders.
The doves waited.
We edged a little closer.
Two turtle doves. Not a pear tree or [grey!] partridge to be seen!
Face on you can't be quite sure...until you hear it purr.
Sunday 10th May
I was parked up at Barden Bridge before 7am. Garden warblers seen immediately in new plantation on far side of bridge. Grey wagtails near the aqueduct bridge. I'm often told the bridge is a folly and when I say it's an aqueduct people clearly don't believe me. This is from the Bolton abbey estate website:
The large turreted bridge which crosses the River Wharfe north of Strid Wood is the aqueduct. The splendid castellations hide the pipe that carries water from the reservoirs at the top of Nidderdale to the cities of West Yorkshire. The bridge provides the perfect place to cross the river if you wish to shorten the Strid Wood to Barden Bridge circular route.
A pair of dippers nest in the bridge.
A female goosander was walking on the rocks.
Into the woods then. Mandarin ducks were perching in the trees.
A pair of common sandpipers were on the 'beach' about 200m upstream of the Cavendish Restaurant.
At the shelter a nuthatch came close.
Pied flycatchers were plentiful and easier to photograph than the redstarts which I saw but failed to get onto. No sign of spotted flycatchers [a bit early?] or of wood warblers [population crash?]
On the way back, approaching Barden Bridge again after my 4.6 mile circular walk, sand martins were flying all around me. This one perched on the fence.
215 UK 2015
6th May ff
Flight was never easy!
Wednesday 6th May
Flight shots, I mean. Much as 'bifs' are probably my favourite way to record birds, birds such as hirundines are, well, pretty tricky. At East Park, Hull, today a red-rumped swallow was flying over the lake along with house, sand, barn and swift. Still I got him in poor light so I can't complain. At times I wasn't sure, looking through the camera, if I was even on the right bird!
Of passing interest: this was the 300th species of British bird that I have photographed. Quite a nice bird to take on this arduous role!!
Thursday 7th May: not just a general election...
A very busy day for me but I managed to get out in the afternoon to go to Saltholme to see if I could see the Temminck's stint. The plan was to then drop down late afternoon to Sutton Bank and see the turtle doves. Plans don't always work out as expected and I knew from the start that the turtles could be elusive...
A quick drive down the Zinc Works Road produced this stonechat who refused adamantly to look my way!
As I walked up to the visitor centre at Saltholme this whitethroat was busy collecting food.
The long walk to Haverton Gate was successful. Mr. Temminck was at home! But being very little, even at fairly close range he seemed a little distant...
...as was an LRP
Eventually I set off southbound for Sutton Bank. As the visitors left and the cycle shop packed up for the day my hopes rose. A young man from the National Park staff told me I needed to come very early morning. After checking out innumerable collared doves and wood pigeons in the surrounding trees I raised my bins once more to a rather bedraggled wood pigeon...
...or so I surmised...
The bird didn't mind me walking around its tree to get a better light. Much better! Or was it a different bird maybe?
Two turtle doves and not a [grey] partridge to be seen!
#212 UK 2015
4th May 2015
Un bel di
['One fine day' Madame Butterfly/Puccini]
And a very fine day it was. I drove towards Chisworth on the Greater Manchester/Derbyshire border. The satnav found Gun Road without trouble and I knew I was in the right place from the number of cars. I guess there were about 100 plus birders there at the peak time. The red-throated pipit was initially missing but was soon relocated quite close to my car! The camera was in the car as I had assumed like everyone else that it would need a scope to see this bird. By now Tiggy was surrounded by scopes and anxious birders as the bird walked among the juncus just in front of us!
Eventually I got the camera and caught up with the bird which had flown a little further into the field.
Now what? Well the pied-billed grebe tempted me to head north for Leighton Moss. Quite a drive but I'm glad I went - not just for the grebe but for something else I'd never seen before.
Anyway, here's the distant grebe.
It refused to come nearer!
Meanwhile in front of the hide two great crested grebes were displaying...
It was a matter of watching 3 grebes! Where had the pied-billed got to? What were the great crested doing?
Wonderful moments! Unless you look carefully you might not notice there are two grebes together here.
