Welcome to my birding blog - first launched 12th March 2012...
18th-24th May 2019
Going the distance...
Not a reference to the miles travelled [although quite a lot were needed in fact] but to the challenging nature of working at the very limits of what my big lens can do. I'll begin with the bird that came closest...
May 18th: South Gare suaeda
A red-spotted bluethroat was reported so I set off north to Redcar. Only a small group of birders staring rather forlornly into the little suaeda glen out on the clinker field. I set off with bins and camera. Apparently the bird had been seen but was proving elusive. I crossed a few metaphorical fingers. After a while, a glimpse and then back into the vegetation. Photos began to flow as the bird would disappear at one point and reappear elsewhere , somewhere completely different without being seen to fly. It must have run along under cover! Here's the bird - a young male.
A red-backed shrike was reported at Noses Point near Seaham so I decided to try for it. Before I left I scoped the beach at South Gare and was rewarded with a nice group of sandwich terns - my first of the year.
Although I saw the shrike, I got no photos and had to settle for this mipit.
May 21st - a trip to Lancashire
To Lunt Meadows, a Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside Wildlife Trust reserve for the most distant of the three key birds. Now there's a mouthful: the L,M & N.M.W.T!! Formerly the Lancashire Wildlife Trust but local government reorganisation seems to have led to a rather complicated name! Still, a stilt sandpiper was attracting large numbers of birders and the car park was overflowing.
A view of the reserve
And the bird itself - always very distant and often hidden. It accompanied a black-tailed godwit - they were inseparable, so if you lost track of the sandpiper as it moved among the reeds, finding the blackwit always helped you track the stilt. Here it is.
Also seen: a friendly magpie who let me get very close...
...goldfinches...
...and a four-spotted chaser dragonfly.
May 24th: Saltholme
I've dedicated a lot of time to great reed warblers this month: 3 trips to Wintersett to listen to a great reed warbler and possibly glimpse it [but it was probably an ordinary reed warbler] but I'm now well used to the song and call of this species. Then one turned up at Saltholme. First trip it disappeared into the main reedbed fifteen minutes before I arrived. However they don't call me the persistent birder for nothing. When it showed well on the fringes of the Main Lake, I tried again. This would be the middle distance bird but given its size [even a great reed warbler isn't exactly huge] and the constantly moving reeds in quite a breeze, this was quite a challenge and I'm quite surprised to have a few nice, usable images. I stood in the long grass with three friendly birders and waited, and waited and... There, it's coming up...
The location
The bird
203 UK 2019
12th-16th May 2019
Under the weather...
Feeling listless and I ache all over - probably just a spring cold [I hope]. Still I don't feel like doing much other than sitting at the laptop and updating my blog and current photo book.
So, let's make a start.
May 12th: Great Cowden and Kilnsea: I was up very early to see the smart looking brown shrike at Great Cowden. Not to be, alas. And I had a fall in a nasty little greasy dip en route not to see it. Determined to make something of the day I headed for Kilnsea. Wryneck seen distantly on a wire then flew off bouncing its way down the road towards the Crown & Anchor. Then someone spotted a yellow wagtail in the field diagonally across from the old Blue Bell cafe.
I was somewhat puzzled by this bird: it seems rather bright for a female. Is it just a female yellow wag? Anyway, here's the male.
Swallow on the wires by the Blue Bell.
May 14th: Appleton-le-Moors & Hawnby
I visited two sites that over the years took me a long time to identify - that I found them at all was mainly thanks to poor old Nigel Stewart - much missed. The targets were butterflies, rare ones, at both sites. First site took me a long time to find them as they had moved further down the glen and, maybe, I was a bit early and it took a while for the optimum temperature to be reached. Still they did appear and lots of them - 50 or more. They were everywhere and very active. I despaired any would ever land anywhere near me. Patience paid off!
For a while I satisfied myself with a few chiffchaff and yellowhammer photos.
It was easy to get excited whenever a small tortoiseshell flashed past.
Now for the pearl bordered fritillaries [not the much more common small pearl-bordered - they appear a little later]
One of the diagnostic features is the ''duck's head'' on the hind wing. Look for the orange head with a black eye and a white bill!
Then it was on to Hawnby Hill for the Duke. Leaving Appleton-le-Moors I spotted a hare in the middle of a field. I drove on a 100m or so and walked back staying behind a stone wall as much as possible.
View looking south from my climb up the northern flank.
The heavy booming thud thud of a large helicopter filled the air and 2 chinooks came into view low over the village.
Eventually I reached the gates to the Duchy of Burgundy.
Green-veined white on a solitary greater stitchwort, I think.
Primroses flowering quite late up here - they are the Duke's key food plant.
Dukes are tiny - wingspan about 3cms.
I was very lucky to see this pair and I took 3 shots whereupon they fell off the blade of grass and disappeared in the scrub below!
Tree pipit just outside the site on my walk back.
I called at Sutton Bank for the early purple orchids.
May 16th: Fairburn
Little seen. Here's a dog rose.
Unusually, although I would normally end my blog with a full stop I've broken with tradition. I've used a comma instead
197 UK 2019
6th-8th May 2019
South Gare, Crook Ness and Heslington East
April 6th: I drove up to Redcar to try for terns at South Gare. It was raining so I walked down to the shore with just my bins to see what was around. Encouraged by at least 4 little terns resting on the wet sand I made my way back to get the camera.
Also on the beach: dunlins...
...ringed plover...
...and common gull.
April 7th: Crook Ness farm, following the first hedge after the Burniston observatory hut. I hoped the woodchat shrike would still be around. Only three birders visible as I approached but the bird performed pretty well. A good morning's excursion!
April 8th: in heavy rain I parked at the University Hes East car park and walked to the lake. Large numbers of swallows and a very welcome black tern for my York list - certainly the best York species so far this year. Only took bins as it was raining really hard.
193 UK 2019
29th April-2nd May 2019
A more memorable cuckoo shot...
...and other oddments!
April 29th - a trip to Carr Lane, South Kirkby for two quality birds, although the origins of one of them always raises some doubts. Smart looking ferruginous duck on Carr Lane pond [when I eventually found the right location as the pager's info sent me to a place about a mile away!] An optimistic birder announced: ''Well, it isn't ringed on one leg. Can't see the other one.''
Anyway, an obliging bird that didn't linger and was gone the next day.
Same pond also featured a calling cuckoo. Eventually it was spotted high up in the birch trees. I managed a photo of a cuckooing cuckoo!!
Remarkably, about 300 yards further down the road and then on foot under a railway bridge and in a clump of trees just the other side of the bridge an Iberian chiffchaff was singing heartily - and didn't sound at all like a chiffchaff.
May 1st - I walked from Fairburn Visitor Centre via the Coal Tips trail to Lin Dike and then back along the river. I saw very little other than distant egrets and spoonbills. No sign of the hoped-for green woodpecker, alas. I did snap this willow warbler up by the top lakes.
Tired, I was glad to take a break and drive to Blacktoft thinking the Monty's might show. She didn't but I did see my first hobby and reed warblers of the year. Here are some other birds: whitethroat and vermin, sorry, pheasant...
...plus some marsh harrier shots.
A short sequence of a marsh harrier turning and diving into the reeds...
May 2nd - black-crowned night heron reported Main Bay Fairburn. After doing the week's shopping I went to see. No sign but first kingfishers and swifts of the year so not a wasted trip. Rain drove me away but I came back later when the bird reappeared and saw it distantly but well. Only shot that day: a calling great crested grebe.
189 UK 2019
22nd-28th April 2019
The grass is riz!
I wonder where the birdies is! They're nearly all here...
April 22nd - Saltholme
I started bright and early at Dorman's Pool, hoping for some warblers. As I got out of the car I could immediately hear a gropper reeling, and, given my hearing loss, that meant very close indeed. Soon spotted in thick vegetation across the road from the little car park. Tried everything to get clear views...
Common whitethroat in same area
Path down to the hide held linnets and sedge warblers - annual treat to get close to the sedgies!
Linnet posing as moustached warbler!!
Sedge warblers
On to Saltholme proper. Walked down to Saltholme hide and met two birds on posts! Meadow pipit first.
Then a super looking wheatear.
Last photo from that trip: a greylag!
I was lucky to be shown a little stint on the causeway late afternoon but it was a tricky scope job to pick it up. Thanks to local birders!
April 24th - Scaling Dam
Hoping most of all for a cuckoo, I spent a very pleasant few hours in the hide chatting to Teesside birders. I'll begin with a greenshank that was in front of the hide.
A white wagtail wasn't co-operative!
The pair of common sandpipers were a bit more inclined to pose.
Some of you may know I call extremely distant views of a bird ''cuckoo' shots. Well here's one...
Meadow pipit [I guess] having a go and probably with good reason!
April 26th - Saltholme and Bishop Middleham
Spent the morning in Phil Stead hide waiting for this bird to wake up!
There were other things to keep me interested...
Black headed gull looking smart in excellent light
A shelduck too
Teal
A group of black-tailed godwits were out on the water feeding.
Three lesser black-backed gulls came in.
They clearly made the godwits very nervous. You'll get some idea from these shots...
The gulls eventually left.
A heron preened and posed.
Throughout all of this the pair of garganey [brief view of female to follow] slept on in the sunshine. I went to buy some sunflower hearts for our garden birds. I went back. Eventually the garganeys stirred. The pictures show I'll never get this close to a garganey again!
I left for Castle Lake, Bishop Middleham in increasing drizzle. Yellow wagtails promised but I couldn't find any. However prime target did show: wood sandpiper.
Today, April 28th: Lin Dike
Up early hoping for a female bufflehead. Seen a few times eventually very far end of Spoonbill Flash. No photos but did see Egyptian geese and my first common terns of the year. Here's the terns.
182 UK 2019