Showing posts with label Thrushes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thrushes. Show all posts

Sunday 26 April 2020

Nature walks during Lock Down part 2

And so it goes on and still we wait and wonder when life can return to some kind of normality. We all hope and pray that our loved ones remain well and most of all, we want a vaccine, but that's a way off and so for now, here in the UK, its pretty much as you were. I continue to exercise my right to daily walks, I've bought a bike, bit slack around the 1 hour advice but I keep my distance and keep myself to myself, I'm a gang of one and apart from missing seeing my kids, friends and missing work, quite content.

April started on a real high note for me. Once a week I pop round to drop off provisions for my mum and more often than not call in to nearby Strensall Common for a walk and a look see. On one such occasion, quite by chance I lifted the bins to what I first thought was a crow flapping across the common near to the firing ranges - it was only a ringtail Hen Harrier!



I literally dropped my binocs in favour of the camera and although it was always flying away managed a couple of creditable pics given that my hands were probably shaking! My second HH record for Strensall and one of only a handful of Yorkshire sightings. I followed it of course but the bird was well gone but what a great bird to have and so lucky to have been there at that exact moment.

Got this Fox in my sights as I was trailing around looking for the HH again, no doubt enjoying the relative lack of people on the common.


Stonechat, Strensall Common, 16/04/20
Also on Strensall Common recently I've flushed Woodlark from a couple of locations where I've not seen them before (again maybe due to lack of disturbance), at least 2 pairs of Curlew and more Stonechats than ever before. No Wheatears though which has been disappointing since they've been seen at several locations around York.








Leys Wood & Grimston Brow, 06/04/20
Its been a pleasurable challenge picking out nearby destinations on the map that I've either been to before and want to revisit or have never been to. Birdsall Brow, Grimston Brow and Duggleby Wold in the Yorkshire Wolds all come under the latter and all great places to escape from the madding crowd!







Cinqefoil Hill, Duggleby Wold, 13/04/20

Looking north towards Malton from the top of Birdsall Brow, 20/04/20

Looking north west towards Norton & Malton from Duggleby Wold high top, 13/04/20

Parched earth nr Pocklington Canal, 23/04/20
 This time of year I'd normally be abroad in Spain and I'm missing it but what with the weather being so, well ... continental, sometimes its possible to imagine that your in a different country ...











Stensall Common, 21/04/20
Foggathorpe, 18/04/20
Dream on boyo, foreign travel the way I like to do it is out for the foreseeable!

Pocklington Wood, 19/04/20
Good job I have so many easily accessible wild places on my doorstep. Pocklington Woods for example, a mere 10 minute cycle ride away, isn't 'foreign looking' at all, its quintessential old english woodland with as good a Bluebell display as anywhere around here.








Bluebells, Pocklington Wood, 19/04/20

Wild Garlic, Pocklington Wood, 19/04/20

Plenty more of the usual spring wild flowers blooming on the road side verges of course and more butterflies than usual maybe?

Lesser Celandines, Strensall, 16/04/20

Orange Tip, Strensall, 16/04/20

Wood Anemones, Howsham, 03/04/20

Peacock, Mowthorpe, 07/04/20

Ladies Mantle (Cuckoo flower), 10/04/20
Comma, Hovingham, 08/04/20
Forget me nots, Birdsall, 10/04/20



Stitchwort, Howsham, 22/04/20
The most spectacular wild flowers I've seen recently are these Snakes Head Fritillaries, 4 or 5 of them growing in a paddock adjacent to the Pocklington Canal near Bielby. Probably not that wild though - rare in the UK and a favoured garden plant, gorgeous all the same!

Snakes Head Fritillary, Pocklington Canal, 17/04/20

Speaking of gardens, you wouldn't want this many Mares Tails in your borders, never seen so many in my life!

Mares Tails, Foggathorpe, 18/04/20
If you've scrolled down this far well done you, not sure I would have done - one fine day I'll get the hang of short snappy up to date posts, but plainly this is not that day as I've hardly mentioned birds and its Spring goddammit!

To be fair, although I've seen plenty, I haven't got that lucky with the camera apart from that magnificent Hen Harrier. Had my first Sand Martins, Swallows and House Martins during the first week of April - all memorable in their own way but no pics. First Willow Warbler on the 10th, first Cuckoo on the 21st no pic, and so on; not that I'm complaining, these are not times to be complaining about anything in my view, no its just the way it goes sometimes. Had more luck with late winter birds - Fieldfares were passing through and doing theire usual thing of massing in tree tops before flying north
Fieldfares, Jefrey Bog, 05/04/20

Fieldfares passing through and heading north, Duggleby Wold, 13/04/20
I had a very late one (Fieldfare) fly over me 'chagh chaghing' away in a brilliant blue sky near Howsham on the 22nd. The pic isn't worth posting but at more or less the same time one of  Mr Fieldfare's close relatives, common as he is seemed to be saying 'this is how to sing my friend' ...just had to be snapped!
Blackbird singing from on high, Howsham, 22/04/20
Reed Bunting, Foggathorpe, 18/04/20
On my walk around Foggathorpe and whilst next to one of the old fishing ponds there I was curious as to what was causing bits of Bullrush fluff to be floating about on such a still day. Turned out to be a  Reed Bunting pecking away at the mast heads and gathering the stuff - for nest building or food? I suspect the former.
Reed Bunting, Foggathorpe, 18/04/20

Whimbrel calling, Pocklington Canal, 23/04/20
 For keen birders, the annual observation of Whimbrel (for the not so keen think small Curlew) as they pass through the Lower Derwent Valley on their way north to breed will no doubt be less observed, but here is at least one for the record. Over the Pocklington Canal near Storwood lock..


Whimbrel,  Pocklington Canal, 23/04/20

Boxing Hares, Thornton Ings, 10/04/20
 Still awaiting my first Swift of the year and fully expect it to be from my garden or around the church steeple here in Pock, till then, stay safe folks and I leave you with some boxing Hares and a few other random pics ...





















Boxing Hares, Thornton Ings, 10/04/20

Curlew, Melbourne, 01/04/20

Grey Wagtail, Mowthorpe, 07/04/20

Sheriff Hutton castle from Mowthorpe, 07/04/20

Melbourne arm, Pocklington Canal, 10/04/20

Norton from Birdsall Brow, 20/04/20

Exmoor Ponies on Skipwith Common, 24/04/20

Strensall Common, 21/04/20





Sunday 12 January 2020

Festive season catch up - Lower Derwent Valley, Far Ings, Silton Forest and over wintering Blackcaps

To be fair, the baggins has had a lot on his plate recently and is hereby excused for not posting a single thing on here since last summer😜😜.

Seriously though, and not that this bothers me unduly, 'tis another consequence of  'getting on a bit', that inability to juggle quite so many balls in the air at the same time without falling down legs akimbo! Whatever, 😀 Mental health re frame required for reaching the age of 60 is under construction and work is progressing on schedule!

Enough of that rubbish. Here's a few of my wildlife highlights over the festive season.

Me n Mikey, Bubwith Ings, 10/01/20 (pic R. Marrs)

First off and fresh in the mind, a great day out around the LDV (Lower Derwent Valley) with good mates Mikey, Rob n Mark ...

A bright, crisp and sunny day, the kind we haven't had enough off this winter so far, and a joy to be out and about the floodplains.

Me n Mark, East Cottingwith, 10/01/20 (pic R. Marrs)
Aughton church from North Duffield, 10/01/20
Bubwith Ings, 10/01/20
Wigeon, East Cottingwith, 10/01/20

 Lots of birds around with 1000s of Wigeon, Mallard and Teal in the air along with smaller numbers of Pintail, Gadwall, Shoveler and a few Goosanders. At one point mid afternoon we reckoned on appx 7000 ducks flew over East Cottingwith into Wheldrake Ings


Wigeon, Bubwith Ings, 10/01/20

Ruff, in with Lapwing flocks, East Cottingwith, 10/01/20

Nowhere near the huge numbers of Lapwing that there used to be but comfortably 2000+ and in amongst these flocks just 2 Golden Plover (disappointing) but also 4 Ruff that I took to be Golden Plovers at the time till I zoomed in on the pic .. easy mistake to make!
















2 Marsh Harriers patrolling the reeds over by Aughton provided us with constant entertainment as we sat in the hide at North Duffield, as did a single Water Rail creeping around the scrape there, and later on at Melbourne / Thornton Ings an even better treat - a female Merlin speeding over Church bridge and heading south looked to be joined by another. Uncommon birds in the York area so a good record. Just before dusk there appx 30 Corn Buntings flew over towards their usual roosting spot nr Thornton lock.

Marsh Harrier over Aughton, 10/01/20


Silton Forest, 09/01/20

Out on my own the day before I went up to Silton Forest, a forestry commission england site near Northallerton and on the western fringe of the north yorks moors. I was after some location shots for the new website and couldn't have picked a murkier day, but got what I went for in the end, and a pleasant walk in a pleasant forest to boot.

Not a great deal spotted - Nuthatch, Treecreeper, Jay, GS Woodpecker, Willow Tit and a small flock of Siskins.


Silton Forest, 09/01/20


Closer to home, my mother's house to be exact and out the back on the pond there have been up to 17 Goosanders throughout the winter so far, plus a Kingfisher, Great Crested Grebe and in the gardens backing on to the pond Redwings, a Fieldfare, Bullfinches and best of all at least 3 different over wintering Blackcaps - 2 males together a few weeks back and a few days later a male and female together. Great garden record, even managed to spot where one of them goes into roost - a neighbours acacia tree!

 All feeding on the last few Rowan berries and the fat balls of course!


Male Blackcap, York, 14/12/19




Redwing, York, 14/12/19

Goosander (female), York,
Bullfinch (male) 11/12/19


This past year has been like no other for me, much change and lots of ups and downs, the first year for decades that I haven't traveled abroad and the year I decided to give up living on a caravan site. All coming together now, thank god, and planning to be away again to mainland Europe in the spring after a short trip up to Scotland next month. In the meantime here's a few more selected pics from Dec/ Jan.

Goldfinch drinking, Askham Bog, 01/12/19

Pintail, Wheldrake Ings, 05/12/19

Stonechat, Pocklington Canal, 05/12/19,

Whooper Swans, Great Lake, Castle Howard, 09/12/19

Far Ings & Humber Bridge, 13/12/19

Far Ings & Humber Bridge, 13/12/19

Sparrowhawk, Far Ings, 13/12/19



Redwing, York, 14/12/19


Blackcap at roosting site, York, 31/12/19


Towards Wheldrake Ings from the Pocklington Canal, 31/12/19
 Happy 2020!😃😃😃