Welcome to my birding blog - first launched 12th March 2012...
11th-18th June
Playing Catch-up!
Computer disaster led to reinstalling Windows and everything else. Fortunately all photos and precious stuff were safe elsewhere....
So, where was I? Oh yes, June 11th at Fen Bog hoping for a butterfly or two! A Class 37 diesel came by on time on the NYMR.
Whilst butterflies are running late this year. I did eventually find a small copper and a small heath. They posed in the cool wind.
Next stop Blacktoft on June 14th with Barry. All quiet on the East Yorkshire front in terms of new birds but there was stuff happening. Like black-headed gull youngsters having a swim...
...or avocets showing that they really should be called exocets. They weren't just flying around you know...
...coming back after an anti-harrier sortie...
...and then back up again. Attack!
Later I took a lot of photos of a marsh harrier food pass but somehow never caught the actual pass.
Black on white - with a dash of pink!
Back to Fen Bog on 15th June. Nothing to report. A lousewort was in flower - parasitic relative of broomrapes.
I moved on to Ellerburn Bank. Orchids surprised me and lifted the day. If you don't know Ellerburn Bank, turn off just before the Dalby Forest Drive pay toll [west end] and park at the side of the timber yard. Then walk along the track for about 500m. Some timber for you!
Ellerburn Bank had fly orchid, marsh orchid and butterfly orchid - and in that order here they are!
Next trip was on the 16th to Blacktoft and then Crowle Moors. A ring-necked duck was at Blacktoft but its bill was constantly covered in mud. You can see the cinnamon neck ring - just!
A sedge warbler posed nicely.
A Blacktoft spider's web.
Crowle Moors proved to be Crowle Waste of time - it's called Crowle Waste on OS maps: good name. All I saw were some goats.
Siamese goats?
On Thursday 18th a squacco heron was reported at Saltholme. I went up straightaway which was a good idea as it had gone by the following morning.
Nearly there! On Father's Day I enjoyed a seawatch where along with all the usual suspects I saw 3 of the pomarine skuas that have been hanging around Flamborough Head plus a few manx shearwaters one of which came in quite close. A marsh orchid was snapped by my Nikon Coolpix because I'd forgotten to charge the DSLR battery!
Early June 2015
Dancing in the Rain
Preamble
A strange sparrow was spotted in the garden by Sheila. Almost a young snow bunting!
...and this sparrow was photographed by Sheila taking cotton wool for its nest from a dwarf conifer which she had decorated for the sparrows!
June 3rd: Dunwich Heath & Minsmere
I left home like a mouse creeping away in the wee small hours. Destination: Southwold and Dunwich Heath. Research encouraged me to believe this to be a reliable dartford warbler site and the one nearest to York. I paid my car park fee and set off. Tiny birds flew away from me before I could get a fix. I felt hopeful. Another early birder beckoned me over. A male was perched distantly on the heather. It had no idea it was lifer 417!
Dragonflies were already on the wing at 8.30 am. Four-spotted chaser.
Someone said some dartford warblers were showing near a stonechat nest. I found the stonechats...
...and then movement in a tiny 2-foot high wind battered pine sapling...
Female below.
Male again!
I headed for Minsmere. Dragonflies were active on the ponds near the visitor centre.
Many birds seen including a great view of a low flying bittern. Year tick in the shape of this nice hobby.
I saw an amazing clump of tree lupin - it must have been ten feet across.
June 4th: Strumpshaw Fen & Lakenheath
Next day north initially to Strumpshaw Fen.
Brimstones near Reception...
... but, apparently, the single swallowtail had disappeared. I set off to walk the reserve. Cutting a long story [after a long walk] short, eventually I found them. About 6 of them.
I photographed this hornet [?] too...
...plus a large red damselfly...
...and a female common blue.
Later I drove down to Weeting Heath NWWT to see the stone curlews wobbling in the heat haze and on to Lakenheath RSPB where I saw marsh harriers and hobbies and a kingfisher [albeit distantly].
Further down the reserve I was lucky to see a family of 3 common cranes, including a youngster. Here's one of them.
June 5th: Titchwell & Frampton Marsh
June 5th was a wet day in Norfolk/Lincolnshire. No sign of a red-necked phalarope but quite a few little gulls dancing in the rain.
This song thrush was sheltering from a downpour.
Frampton Marsh had mislocated the white-rumped sandpiper.
Lapwings were anxiously looking for something to be afraid of...
...and a little egret was dancing in the rain....
...whilst a reed bunting sang his heart out on a nearby branch.
June 6th: Hale, Cheshire and Martin Mere, Lancashire
Barry and I headed west and I saw lifer 418 - a corncrake along with some grey partridges and a corn bunting or two. We then visited Martin Mere and saw a red-necked phalarope. No photos this trip.
I saw these words on a poster in Southwold during my 3 days in Suffolk/Norfolk. Vivien Greene, estranged wife of the novelist Graham Greene, wrote them:
''Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. It is about learning to dance in the rain.''
I rather like that. Seems like the ideal mantra for a patient birder.
UK life: 418
UK 2015: 232
May 30th 2015
May 30th 2015
Birds being somewhat thin in the air and on the ground I had decided several days earlier that my next trip would be the first of the year to Chambers Farm Wood near Bardney, Lincolnshire. In particular I hoped to see my first ever marsh fritillaries.
En route I called at Alkborough Flats hoping for a bearded tit. No chance! Saw some skylarks singing from dead plant stems.
Co-operative sort of butterfly the marsh frit: doesn't fly about like a lunatic! Likes to pose on a leaf or spend an hour or so locked together with its mate. Here they are. Roughly 5 different specimens in the photos.
Back at the car park after a fairly long walk I suddenly realised a buzzard was drifting past overhead.
With a little time to spare I called at Adwick [part of the RSPB Dearne Valley complex] and went along the river bank where I had seen a banded demoiselle the previous year. They are still there.
Saw a nice cluster of both corn buntings and grey partridge [225 2015] at Hale yesterday but failed to see the resident corncrake...
...oh well, there'll be others maybe!
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.