Welcome to my birding blog - first launched 12th March 2012...
9th June - 18th June 2017
Here, There & Everywhere!
June 9th - 18th
[omitting June 15th at Bowesfield Marsh as already featured in last entry.]
June 9th I called at Saltholme for birdseed and popped into Phil Stead's. An egret was among the equisetum [or similar] and another was inspecting the pylons.
June 11th took me to Billingham in the afternoon on the off-chance of a rose-coloured starling at number 45 Cayton Drive. It was photographed from number 37 - many thanks to all the hospitable folk at both addresses! A very unusual twitch! Here's the bird.
June 13th at Bempton for a turtle dove that failed to show. So you'll have to make do with this fine fellow...
...and a pair of collared doves!
Tame jackdaw - I like jackdaws - must be those blue eyes!
June 14th at Blacktoft. First bittern of the year seen. Main purpose was to try to get good photos of marsh harriers. Didn't quite achieve the level of detail I should like but some of these are ok.
Later at Marshland I watched the avocets.
A heron was catching tiddlers.
Konik pony.
First meadow brown of the year.
16th June: Scaling Dam. I went for a very distant scope-only spotted sandpiper. Afterwards I went for a stroll down Boghouse Lane. I wonder what this is?
A small trainer aircraft zoomed low overhead...
...whilst meadow pipits kept a watchful eye on me.
I called at Fen Bog on the way home. Common spotted.
Train spotted.
BR Standard Class 4MT 2-6-0 number 76079. 60 years old this year. Now, where's my anorak?
Last lap: June 18th - Open Day at Tophill Low - and no admission charge. However that wasn't why I went...
There were orchids, common spotted and bee...
...and a pair of distant first summer little gulls on South Marsh East...
...and a ragged common blue butterfly.
But there was another reason for going.
236 UK 2017
15.06.17
The Persistent Birder Rides Again!
After trying in vain to really properly observe the marsh warbler at Saltholme another turned up at Bowesfield Marsh nature reserve, Stockton-on-Tees. The reserve is not easy to find. I went four times. Heard and saw it [fleetingly] each time but no photos. So, decided to get up early...
...and on June 15th I arrived on site at 5.58, walked to the area I knew so well by now and waited. The bird began to sing, and sing, and sing. First photos at 6.26 am. Finally the bird did really show well - and repeatedly. Here comes the marsh warbler!
As I left I could hear [not for the first time] a grasshopper warbler. Several of us had tried to locate it on previous visits. This morning at 6.38 I spotted it and was able to photograph it from various angles as I moved around it without getting too close...
By 10.30 I had been back home to York, driven to Tesco to do the weekly shop [spotted by Barry at around 9.44] and was sitting at home drinking a cup of coffee.
Game, set and marsh, I think!!
31.05.17 - 06.06.17
Hey June - don't let me down!
Always hoping for something really good...
I begin with a left-over from May 31st. A trip to Fen Bog for whinchats drew a blank. Did see small copper and this dingy skipper.
On the way home [well, a bit out of the way] we called at Swillington Ings to see a black tern which duly obliged as I had missed out on the large influx earlier in the month.
June 1st - another catch-up exercise. I got to Whisby by 8 o'clock in the morning and was soon listening to the nightingale by the railway bridge. Lots of brief sightings but usually deep in the bushes so no photos. A fledging of long-tailed tits amused me as I sat on an adjacent bench in the sun.
Quite clever: balancing on a wire with one foot while having a good scratch with the other foot up round the back of its neck!
I moved on to my prime location for the day: a session with the marsh fritillaries, I hoped, at Chambers Farm Wood and Little Scrubbs Meadow. I knew they were having a good year and I was not disappointed even though their season was coming to an end. I saw one as soon as I arrived by the butterfly garden!
There were also at least 8 broad-bordered bee-hawk moths on the valerian. See the pollen on some of their heads. Here's a few of my better efforts - much more tricky to photograph than the docile fritillaries.
There were more of the moths out on the meadow too. A common spotted orchid - one of many...
...and a female common blue which I just failed to get with wings open.
Marsh fritillaries
Just as the moths preferred the valerian flowers, the marsh frits were often on ragged robin.
I called at Blacktoft on the way home just for an hour. It was pretty quiet. A yellow wagtail was on First.
June 3rd we went to Saltholme to walk the Wilderness Trail to see a marsh warbler. Heard it plentifully and saw some warblers but couldn't be sure it was the bird itself.
Flashback: : here's a marsh warbler from Blacktoft a few years ago.
On the way back a painted lady dropped onto the path.
June 4th: I went back, saw the bird as it flew at the end of a singing interlude. No photo even though I keep reading reports of it ''showing well.''
A common tern at Paddy's.
231 UK 2017
24th-28th May 2017
A May Miscellany
1: Hornsea and Tophill Low - May 24th
I started my East Yorkshire roundabout trip at Kirkholme Point, Hornsea Mere to see the lingering iceland gull. Soon spotted chasing the visitors around among the canada geese.
Eventually it flew out on to the mere...
....and came back for a rest!
There were lots of jackdaws about.
I headed on to Tophill Low. My hope was to photograph reed warblers as it is the best place I know to get up close to these birds. Here they are.
Next I walked on through the woods heading for the kingfishers. A common sandpiper ran along the reservoir parapet. The dots are flies - one on the right is almost in focus!
I got quite close.
Amazingly there was no-one in the hide. A lapwing dropped in.
Both kingfishers turned up and were still taking fish into the nest hole. Rather pleased with this set of images.
2: My favourite Yorkshire walk - May 26th
A very early start had me walking south from Barden Bridge by 7am. It was a beautiful morning.
I saw pied and spotted flycatchers but failed to get any decent photos so I settled for goosander, mandarin, dipper, blackcap, curlew and nuthatch - in no particular order!
3: Garden spider: May 27th
Sheila spotted a hatching of a mass of spiders on virginia creeper by the garage at home. I put the macro lens on.
4: Chris and Barry go orchid and butterfly hunting! May 28th
Barry fancied a trip to Leyburn Old Glebe field near Wensley. The famous green-winged orchids were much in evidence but largely over for the year. We found no burnt-tip orchids and settled for a couple of marsh orchids and quite a lot of twayblade.
View from the orchid field.
Second target would be Duke of Burgundy butterflies to the east, north of Helmsley. We were in luck - not only did we find our target butterfly but in the glade we also had painted lady, red admiral, dingy skipper and small copper.
The Dukes are very small!
Barry correctly identified this miniature potentilla - tormentil.
We called briefly at Sutton Bank to see the early purple orchids [too busy for any chance of turtle doves] and headed for a site near Knaresborough for an annual small blue 'fix'!
Barry got down to work!
He found a common blue damselfly too.
Plenty of small blues on the kidney vetch.
228 UK 2017
9th May - 18th May 2017
Back to the day job!
May 9th: Sheila and I headed off on a mystery tour to Blackmoorfoot Reservoir in search of the [difficult to find] Potato Lane. Unknown to locals walking by the reservoir eventually on the internet I found a reference to a walk along Potato Lane starting at a pub called, strangely, the Wills O'Nats. And then we met a birder and then we saw a stone curlew very distantly asleep in a sheep field where the heat haze made everything shimmer and shake.
Some readers will recall my description of some photos as 'cuckoo shots' because most of my cuckoo photos have been distant dots. It's time for a few that come close to that definition - not quite even record shots!
Well, that's quite enough of that!
May 10th: the following day a pair of black-winged stilts were reported at Blacktoft. Not quite so wobbly as the stone curlew but still quite distant. Greenshank in shot too.
The yellow wags weren't quite close enough either.
May 11th: 3 remarkable days for rarities. May 11th took me north to Catton Moss, Northumberland for a settled short-toed lark: lifer 433 for me. Soon seen but always distant. Here's the best I could manage...
After photos of rather variable quality it was time for something better...
May 13th: I started my day at North Cave. It was good to meet up with Stuart and we found the wood sandpipers after they had relocated from the reedbed to the silt lake.
The dotterel were reported as still present at Danby Beacon. This made a lovely cross-country drive. I had been watching the two birds for about ten minutes when a voice behind me said something along the lines of 'Good afternoon, Mr. Downes!' Nigel from York. We took lots of photos of these super birds. Here are the ones I liked best.
I called at Sutton Bank for the turtle doves which showed near the feeders. I was about to press the shutter when a group of bikers returned to the bike hire shop. The doves flew off.
There's a lovely patch of early purple orchids near the centre.
May 18th: final set for this blog. I went to Crimdon Dene and beach to see the little terns. An annual pilgrimage for me although I had seen little terns in Spey Bay a week or so earlier. Here I hoped to get much closer if they were on the beach.
No sign at all! Some ringed plovers and dunlin entertained my lens.
I walked back up to the warden's hut. No Trevor this year. Swallows and skylarks everywhere. Chatting to the girl at the hut I explained there were no terns. She said they had been around but weren't on eggs yet. I scanned the beach. They had reappeared having returned from a fishing trip perhaps. I headed back down. 34 birds seen at highest count.
I'll finish with a dunlin: they were very smart!
224 UK 2017