Thursday 29 May 2014

Norfolk road trip Pt1 - White blobs on the Wash and scarce butterflies at Snettisham

So after the trials and tribulations of my aborted trip to the Somerset Levels and all the domestic 'busyness' surrounding my house sale, it was time to take a breather and head off in the new van.
My good friend Robin was free and came along for the ride and good news about my regular walkabout pal Mark .. he's gonna walk again!


The new van!

I Haven't  been to Norfolk for nigh on 15 years so reckoned it was time to revisit and the plan was to split 5 days (Mon - Fri) between the North Norfolk coast and the Broads, chill out with my guitar, Rob's cahon, the local flora n fauna and test drive the van that will be my roving home for a while once my house is sold.














Thankfully, large chunks of Norfolk are still a relative backwater in the UK (and I mean that in the nicest possible way)... few major access roads and lots of narrow winding ones - perfect! In short we had a cracking few days and with both of us snapping away far too much material for one post so here's the first of 3 or 4, starting bizarrely with our last port of call on the way back .... who needs order in the natural world!

Snettisham & The Wash
One of the largest estuaries in the UK with Norfolk on one side and Lincolnshire on the other, this is more than just a vast expanse of mud. Its a designated SPA (special protected area) and home to countless wading birds, ducks and geese, especially during the winter when its estimated that some 400,000 may be present at any one time (more info here - The Wash ).





Greylag Geese with chicks, Snettisham

The few hours we spent at Snettisham RSPB reserve were bathed in sunshine and the wet and wonderfully lush meadows that border the reserve were teeming with bird and insect life with many chicks taking their first steps.

The bushes were full of the sound of scratchy Common Whitethroats plus at least 2 Lesser Whitethroats, Reed Buntings and pleasingly good numbers of Linnets.





Female Linnet, Snettisham

Female Reed Bunting with bugs in its beak, Snettisham



Cuckoo calling from a way off, Snettisham

Cuckoos seem to me to have made a mini revival this year, we heard and saw many in Norfolk and back on my own patch one has been calling from my neighbourhood for the past week. This was a distant shot but came out ok and typical 'wings down' pose is shown off a treat here.












Brown Argus, Snettisham


The sun brought out the butterflies and amongst the brilliant Common Blues we spotted a handful of the locally scarce Brown Argus ... rubbish pic but hey it was a first for me so had to include it as a record!


The Blues were far easier, nonetheless this isn't far off as good as it gets of a nice bright male ... corker of a shot Rob!




Common Blue, Snettisham (pic by Robin Marrs)

Snettisham is renowned for the huge gatherings of migrating waders that gather there to feed on the mud and perform their spectacular aerial displays as they follow the tides .... this mighty fine pic, one of Chris Gomersall's (RSPB), gives you a fair idea!


We weren't blessed with such numbers!

Oystercatchers, Snettisham

...... but we were treated to some spectacular views across the Wash at low tide with a heat haze making distant Lincolnshire look rather more interesting than it actually is!
The Wash, from Snettisham towards the Lincolnshire coast.
 
 

Common Shelduck, Snettisham
and in the foreground those little white blobs you can just about make out are lots of these - we estimated close on 800 Shelduck resting up on the mudflats! Also spied a couple of summer plumage Grey Plovers when I zoomed in on some of these pics.
The vistas here are big and bold, typical 'estuary meets saltmarsh' you see around our coast I suppose, but here in Norfolk the surrounding fields seem more natural, lusher, less intensively farmed maybe, more 'hay rich' certainly and the consequent abundance of wildlife was very very obvious.
 
Young bucks (Roe deer?) with Greylag Geese, fields around Snettisham.
 

Next and coming up soon is Sandringham / Dersingham Bog and Cley Marshes
 
 
 
 
 
 
 













Monday 12 May 2014

Bird surveying in North Yorks produces rocking horse shit around these parts .... breeding Redstarts!


Blogging my stuff has had to take a back seat for the past few weeks ... as even the less observant of you may have noticed but life has been hectic recently to say the least. In short I've sold my old camper, acquired a bigger and better one and have decided to sell my house and live in the new van  over the summer, probably winter in Spain again and then look to buy a smaller house next year. That's the plan anyway and if my house sells soon and I can negotiate a 9 month contract with Yorkshire Wildlife all the better!

So .... busy busy busy, tarting up the house, buying, selling, dealing with unhappy lodgers, not to mention a host of family issues to manage has created the most stress I've experienced in years and to cap it all my best mate Mark has just been involved in serious motorbike accident and has a badly broken leg. We were due to set off on a road trip to the Somerset Levels this week and any feelings of disappointment I have are totally dwarfed by his total abject misery at having to call the trip off .. in all the years we've been hanging out together I've never known him so enthusiastic and 'up' for the cause. He's so pissed off right now.

My thoughts are with him and hope as he does that the orthopaedic surgeons are cooking on gas when they go to work in the next day or so and that he'll be up and running for some mega trip in the Autumn.

So, its been an ok Spring so far, weather's been reasonable and although I've had this constant feeling of missing lots of stuff I have had a few trips out. One of the highlights was being asked to participate in an early breeding bird survey over 2 days back in April on YWT land in the Vale of Pickering at Low Carr farm and Appleton le Moors. My good friend Robin Marrs organised this and jolly good time we had ... still collating all the results but here's a few photos from the gig starting with the undoubted highlight, probable breeding Redstarts at Low Carr.





Didn't manage a decent pic of the female and both seemed very wary so I didn't push it ... need to pop back there soon to confirm breeding but this is a good record for the area.


Little Owl, Low Carr fm
Always good to catch one of these cheeky chappies too ... Little Owls are not as common as they once were and we had a definite pair.

Stacks of common warblers recorded - Willow Warbler, Chiff Chaff and Blackap but sadly no Whitethroats on this occasion. A handful of Sand Martins and Swallows were about and a Kingfisher plus a  pair of Bullfinches on what is essentially arable land was a bonus.

Other notable breeding species including good numbers of Tree Sparrow, Yellowhammer, Reed Bunting, at least 2 pairs of Song Thrushes, Common Buzzard of course but also Kestrel.

Several pairs of Curlew and Lapwing and a distant flock of Golden Plover which we couldn't really count, but sadly no Snipe in some good looking wet fields on the site, but Rob has some on moorland behind his house and still being a bit of a novice birdwatcher we had a laugh about him being freaked out by hearing their strange 'drumming' mating call - he thought aliens had landed in his back garden!

Breeding Curlew at Low Carr fm




 
Male Brambling, Appleton
Bit of a busman's holiday for me this and although my job was to just shout out all the birds it was strenuous enough ... up at the crack of dawn both days and walking all day. No complaints from me though and day 2 at Appleton le Moor was just as enjoyable. No real surprises here but some wonderful woodland habitat with the forest floor covered in Anemones, Bluebells and Wild Garlic. Nuthatches everywhere (we reckoned on 20 plus pairs), more warblers, all the common tits plus a probable Willow Tit amongst at least 3 pairs of Marsh Tit. Several pairs of Great Spotted Woodpecker (now this is a bird that's doing well!) and a single Green Woodpecker. On the river we had Goosander with chicks and a Grey Wagtail, Treecreepers in abundance, Goldcrest, Siskin, more Bullfinches and although just passing through a small flock of Bramblings were the star birds .... one very resplendent male in near full on breeding plumage was particularly photogenic, albeit through a mass of twigs and branches .... not bad for April 19th in North Yorks!
 
Male Brambling, Appleton
Female Goosander with chicks on the River Severn, Appleton
Marsh Tit, Appleton


?Willow Tit, Appleton
All in all a splendid couple of days, good weather, great company and something that needs to be repeated soon so we can get a better picture, many of the breeding birds of both area were yet to arrive ... cuckoo, whitethroat, lesser whitethroat, swift, etc and I could have sworn I heard a Wood Warbler at Appleton and those Redstarts need checking out again before everything goes quiet in mid June.

I'll leave you with a few snaps of YWT staff hard at work (our survey coincided with lambing time at Low Carr!) plus a couple of Rob's very nice wild flower pics ....
Rob with his hands full!
Surveying at Appleton

Surveying at Low Carr
Hard work this lambing .... but I suspect they were up all night!!
Forget me Not

Sloeberry flowers







Friday 11 April 2014

Ring Ouzels return to the Dales and Pimpernels, Sorrells and Anemones by the brook



Having spent a very entertaining and satisfying half a day out tracking down the newly arrived Ring Ouzels in Rosedale with my good friend Rob yesterday, I'm clearly going to have to return to get some better pics! Main thing is we succeeded though and more than that got some cracking views (through the bins). For the record here's a couple of images of a nice male we watched from distance and was one of at least 4 seen at this location.

Spending the Winter in Northern Africa, Ring Ouzels are closely related to our more familiar Blackbird but prefer upland terrain and rocky screes - great birds, I'm more used to seeing them on migration in Autumn so very pleased to get to grips at last with North Yorkshire's small but stable breeding population (somewhere between 60 - 100 pairs)



Gorgeous day for it!


 
 
 


A couple of other birders looking for the same at a likely spot ... YWT members and we chewed the fat a while, and after a while a male and female Ring Ouzel flew across the valley and into the big Holly tree on the left ... upon which they disappeared from sight!

















 
 


Luckily the Northern Wheatears, recent arrivals themselves, were a little more 'obvious'. Much territorial flight display going on with these birds, lots of calling and darting around, chasing off other males whilst the females looked on ... I reckoned on about 15 in total in the dale with all the males in tip top condition!







This cheeky Stoat provided a touch of entertainment whilst we were waiting on the Ouzels to show, eating sandwiches and discussing how best to reduce the human population for the sake of the planet (as you do when waiting on an Ouzel!)












































A bit of cloud cover later on added a touch of drama to the backdrop and with Curlews warbling, Meadow Pipits whistling away and a couple of yaffling  and almost luminescent Green Woodpeckers to boot it was all very atmospheric.

















Our walk back along one of the valley brooks was no less enchanting and brought some welcome floral delights .... early flowering Yellow Pimpernel I believe, its either that or Creeping Jenny




Some impressive and beautiful clumps of Wood Sorrell






..... and couple of patches of Wood Anemone




















No pic (doh!) but worth a note, I had a probable Hobby dashing North up the dale early on ... long tail, slatey grey back and no Kestrel I'm sure!

All in all a cracking good day and mission accomplished as far as the Ouzels were concerned (must get back soon for some better pics though!) and, since we were on part of Wainwrights famous coast to coast walk (I know this because I met and chatted to a couple of blokes who were doing it!), what better than a pint of Thwaites to round things off and boy oh boy I needed it after the walk back up the dale edge!










Monday 24 March 2014

The first few days of Spring - first returning Chiff Chaffs, Sandmartins and well turned out drakes!


Off birding this week for a few days in the Humber Head levels and then hopefully across to the coast  - maybe Gibralter Point or Spurn.... such an exciting time of the year I think; there's already a handful of migrant species knocking about and I aim to photograph every one and stick them on here as I see 'em (Turtle Dove is gonna be a real challenge!)....... so, in anticipation of a shed-load of images next week here's a photo round up of the past couple of weeks as we crossed from Winter to Spring ....


Lapwing, Idle Valley

March 7th and very gratifying to see so many Lapwings in the fields looking resplendent as ever, especially when the sun catches the green in their wing feathers. Many northern Lapwings winter here in the UK and now most of them have dispersed and are looking for fields to breed in.

Likewise birds like Shelduck and Curlew leave our sheltered and food rich estuaries and move inland to breed.













Little Ringed Plover, Idle Valley



Always good to see any waders around Hatfield
and I guess you could call this a migrant - a lone Ringed Plover which we took to be its closely related Little Ringed Plover. Almost more interesting in a way to see these normally tidal waders crop up amongst the crops in flooded fields in South Yorkshire.




 
Male Kestrel, Idle Valley

Not a migrant of course but looking resplendently lovely - albeit at some distance away, here's a male Kestrel looking to attract some female attention.


.... and can anyone enlighten me with the name of this shrub / plant? Stacks of it coming up in Barrowhills Wood ( Nth Notts) like some kind of asteroid borne Triffid!


What is this stuff?

Ok, this is no migrant, its a resident tit but he (or she) is in the mood for something .... tricky from such an angle I know but I reckon this is a Willow Tit rather than the commoner Marsh Tit and he (or she) was hammering and pecking away at this bit of branch for a full 5 mins just above my Yorkshire Wildlife recruiting spot at Askham Bog .... food source? nesting material? Or just a tit doing a woodpecker impression? Either way .... marsh or willow, nesting or feeding ... there was a descent of tiny wood shavings for a moment there!
Willow Tit, Askham Bog

Willow Tit, Askham Bog
Singing Wren, Askham Bog

No debate about the nature of this pic ... my Askham Bog Wrens are just sooo chirpy!!


Great aspect and always good to get a good singing shot.































First Sand Martin, Tophill Low - 21/3/14


So I've photographed my first Little Ringed Plover (tick!) and moving swiftly on to last Friday - the 21st March here's a record pic of my first Sand Martin, one of 11 at Tophill Low nature reserve nr Beverley, East Yorks.

Another true migrant and always a magic moment ... like your first Swallow, first Cuckoo, first Swift, its like a welcome back and these days more than any other I'm just glad to see things returning numbers.












Yeah I know, Chiff Chaff's have been back for a couple of weeks now and I've heard 'em around (my first was at Wheldrake Ings on the 15th March) but my first sighting was today and a good 100 metres away so  I wasn't gonna snap that! Here's a good un from Spain last December ... who knows, this may have been one of Yorkshire's first back!


Back at Tophill Low and migrant wise there were at least 5 Chiff Chaffs there plus 4 Little Egrets (not sure if these can be counted as migrants ... once rare they're almost common UK residents now!), precious few other waders though - 1 Curlew, 1 Redshank and 2 Oystercatchers to be precise!

The morning light was superb, crisp, clear and great reflective light off the water
Lagoon side reeds, Tophill Low



.....and for me its only the light that makes this Pheasant pic so stunning.
Pheasant on the reservoir wall, Tophill



Sun dazzled Little Grebe, Tophill
.....too bright here though for this Little Grebe but ok with a bit of 'doctoring'

Little Grebe, Tophill

One of the great things about this time of year for me is seeing the many thousands of birds that have wintered here gradually acquire their breeding 'costumes' as they begin to depart ... Tophill is famed for it's winter duck population and there's nowhere better in my book for photographing one of my favourites - Goldeneyes

Here's a couple of my first efforts from one of the hides looking out onto the mighgty 'O' reservoir
Drake Goldeneye, Tophill
Drake Goldeneye, Tophill

.... not bad, I really wanted to capture that greenish sheen on their heads when in breeding plumage. Later on from the wall on 'D res' I got some sharper images. The brisk wind that sprung up in the afternoon was producing a sizeable swell out there, creating a mini seascape on which the Goldeneye were happily bobbing up and down on. Quite like the slightly bizarre head & neck shot ... up periscope!

Drake Goldeneye, Tophill Low




Head Shot!! Drake Goldeneye, Tophill Low
Impressive head gear! Male Tufted Duck, Tophill

There were maybe 150 Goldeneyes on both reservoirs ... impressive numbers, can't remember the last time I saw so many. Sticking with the duck theme and sharing the same water there were even more Tufted Ducks and some of the head plumes on the males were verging on flamboyant!


















...... bit distant and a tad 'glary' but thought I'd capture these 3 male Shovellers charging about together, surely some kind of territorial / display type behaviour and something I'd never seen before.
Shovellers charging about, Tophill.