New Year's Day walk in the Howardian Hills

Happy New Year to everyone and to all you birders out there I hope you're 2013 year list has got off to a good start ..... mine is so abysmally average I'm not even going to let on! Struggled to get out what with one thing and another ... weather mainly, but I did get out on New Year's day and since my favourite haunt, the Derwent Valley, was looking more like the North Sea rather than a nature reserve I decided to spend the day on higher ground in the Howardian Hills. Castle Howard would normally be an obvious venue in this much under-rated and under watched area but, sensing it would be thronging with day trippers, dog walkers and Christmas jumper wearers, plus the fact that access is severely restricted these days, I decided to head for Yearsley and the Oulsten Reservoir - an area I used to tramp around regularly up until a few years ago, and see what was occurring.

I have to say, the first day of 2013 around these parts was lovely .... dry (and that's something!), crisp (nicely cold) and more importantly .... lots of sunlight! I had a reasonable few hours walking around familiar forest paths from yesteryear and to my delight found a new right of way through one of the wooded valleys around here.

Apart from a brief Peregrine Falcon moment I didn't see much to report but at least 7 Common Buzzards in the area was reassuring, there were a few small flocks of Redpolls and Siskins, at least 6 Grey Partridge in amongst dozens of Red Legged, and this is one of the few places in the York area you can see both Marsh and Willow Tits .... and I got em both!

Nice Marsh Tit here hanging around a pheasant feeder

I messed around in Lightroom to make something of this pair of Mute Swans that I rather like and will be forever tagged in my collection as 'Sepia Swans'!

 

This is a view of the Oulsten Reservoir with no birds on it! It's never been thronging with water birds but I can remember small flocks of Mallard, Teal, Tufted Duck and Goldeneye here in years gone by and a dozen Goosanders the last time I was here. I did notice some ominous looking screens around the place with square holes in them that looked better suited to guns than telescopes though and it makes me wonder if the ban on fox hunting has led some of our blood thirsty gents into wild fowling for their weekend entertainment!


In some European countries like Greece and Italy they also shoot small birds (passerines) like this rather handsome Golfinch. Safe here thank goodness, apart from passing Sparowhawks of course! This one was basking in the sun it must have almost forgotten about and looked so full on he was crying out to be snapped.











Rather a shame that I couldn't at least get a 'quicky' of the Peregrine but I hardly had time to get the bins on it and identify as a female before she swooped down below the horizon and into a valley full of soon to be agitated pigeons!

Fared a little better with the Buzzards and although at some range and thus cropped a bit too much I think 'Lightroom' (which you may have guessed I've just acquired and currently playing with!) has done a reasonable job on these 2 pictures.

'Do I Wait' for Christmas

Really disappointed with the UK weather at the moment. I read somewhere that the gulf stream has shifted? Well it needs to shift back! Either way ..... it seems to be either bucketing down or blowing a gale, neither of which is conducive to getting out there with my binocs and camera - bad news and it gets worse for you guys who read this thing because that means I get my guitar out and sing!

oh yes and its CHRISTMAS so do have a good one everybody!

I intend to drink and eat far too much than is good for my body and then purge myself with a Boxing Day tramp somewhere where I can't see any tinsel, turkey, baubles or brandy ..... love some snow though!

Ok here's the music. Its a song by the great Ryan Adams called 'Do I Wait' and I'm planning on including this song when I venture into the open mike scene in York in the New Year so by all means tell me what you think.

You 'slag' lol, only joking .... its Fairburn Ings!

I drove down the AI(M) recently to get my car seen to by my nephew and on passing the turn off for Ferrybridge within 20 minutes of setting off I realised that Fairburn Ings, a notable RSPB reserve, was closer to me than I'd previously thought so a couple of days ago I decided to pay said reserve a visit. 

Now it was a dullish day but rain was forecast for the next 3 or 4 so I thought I'd better make the most of things and since I'd done the vast majority of my Christmas shopping the day before I reckoned I deserved a treat.

Fairburn won't win any awards for being picturesque, situated just a few miles outside of Castleford and in the shadow of Ferrybridge power station, its the remains of an old Yorkshire coalfield. Big old slag heaps, although now now largely covered with vegetation, loom large wherever you look and the various water bodies (the result of subsidence of former coal-mine workings) have a distinctly gritty, industrial feel. The RSPB though have done a smashing job here though and with a breeding Avocets and regular rarities seen here, its one of the top reserves in the North of  England.






How's this for an industrial looking bird hide!

My lens, with a fixed aperture of 5.6, is not a great performer in poor light so just as well that Fairburn is one of those photography friendly reserves with plenty of hides and those screens with holes just big enough to poke a long lens through!

No Avocets this time of year of course but plenty of Goosanders around (I reckoned on about 30) and here's a pleasing shot of 3 males.

Lots of Grey Herons about too, always good to capture ...... they stalk around in the reeds

 









hang around in trees .....

 




















...... and have been known to catch the odd fish!

 Cormorants on the other hand are maybe not the most photogenic of creatures and I know the anglers around here and elsewhere hate them because they take fish by the bucket load. Fair do's I say and just as Peregrine Falcons have I'm sure learnt that the Weekends are great for hunting racing pigeons, maybe Cormorants seek out gangs of rubber clad men with rods & poles! There were about 10 perched high up on overhead power lines surveying the scene when I was there but this one taking a lunch break made for a better picture!

 

Around midday the cloud cover intensified rendering anything but close up shots a bit of a lottery. Shame really because after being a tad frustrated by skittish winter thrushes I was coming into to reasonably tame Redwings and Fielfares. I pulled off a few reasonable shots and given the light these haven't turned out too bad but I think a return visit on a bright day is definitely in the offing! The Redwing came out best I think because although I managed to capture the Fieldfare feeding on berries  there was an unseen twig in my near vision that's definitely taken some detail away from the bird's shoulder area .... (argh, why do we look too closely!)

Fieldfare

Redwing

Around the visitor centre at Fairburn there are as many bird feeders as I've seen anywhere. It costs me a tenner a week to keep my garden stocked with various bird seeds and fruit so it must cost the RSPB a small fortune! Money well spent? Yes definitely ... as well as ensuring small birds survive harsh weather snaps, bird feeding stations provide an instant hit for people young and old, capturing their attention and of course their donations!

Great for the odd photo opportunity too, although from a photogenic point of view, any bird captured actually on a feeding station does tend to look a bit 'naff', so I tend to look for 'landing' shots .... where a bird lands immediately before or after feeding. Here's a few examples from 30 minutes or so at one of the feeding stations at Fairburn with not a fat ball or a peanut sack in sight, why if I hadn't already told you these could have taken in some remote arboreal forest!

Goldfinch

Long Tailed Tit



Tree Sparrow



Reed Bunting

Looking at that last picture reminded me of the many Reed Buntings I saw over wintering France (many more than you get here ..... flocks into the hundreds!). No different race than you get here as far as I'm aware but here's a couple of Frenchies .... better light!! 

 

 

 

Lastly here's a pretty smart looking Black Headed Gull, not anywhere near the feeders but I have them occasionally in my garden picking up the scraps that all the other birds tend to leave ... pizza crusts usually! I have to say that I tend to have a bit of blind spot about gulls generally but having seen many fine pictures of gulls of all descriptions on various blogs recently (most of them better than this one!), I'm determined to give them more of a look. I'm not convinced they make pleasing subjects for the camera but my word there seem to be more rare / unusual gulls being seen these days ..... Caspian Gull? Never heard of them before this year!

Northern swan hunting in the floods of the Derwent Valley

 

A fine day yesterday and a perfect opportunity to procrastinate yet again over my Xmas shopping and pop out for a couple of hours to the Derwent Valley in search of Northern swans. I'd heard there were a few Berwick's Swans in the area, these days the scarcer of the 2 species that arrive in our country from the near Arctic circle.

I decided to head out from the Bubwith bridge end along the narrow strip of river bank still above the flood water simply because it looked so inviting .... almost surreal walking out there with the light  being so good.

With so much flood water about though the wildfowl in the valley are spread far and wide so I knew it would be a stroke of luck to get what I was after, a nice close 'fly past' of Berwick's Swans ..... and as far as that particular species was concerned I was not in luck. In fact this was more of a pleasant walk than a serious birding trip. Wigeon and Teal were the most numerous ducks with maybe 200 or so of each visible and there were 20 or so Pochard about but everything very distant. I did have 6 Redshank nr the bridge plus a flock of about 50 Golden Plover in the sky. A passing Buzzard looked good in the sunlight and the Barn Owl was once again daytime hunting near the Geoffrey Smith hide.

 

There were several small groups of distant swans about but too far off to identify without my scope but I did have one Whooper Swan that slid off the bank about 100 yds away. It moved away fairly sharpish and a bit far away for a decent shot but my first of the Winter and the highlight of my little trip across the floods.

Otters and Ice at Tophill Low

Have to say that I've been struggling to get out of bed and get out there with the old binocs and camera of late and I'm not sure why to be honest . The weather has been good, the light 'brilliant' and for sure there's been things I've missed! ..... maybe its because I've been indulging a bit too much in late night cricket from India or maybe it's because wherever I choose to go lately I get turned back due to flooded roads .... maybe it's a seasonal thing, I don't know, suffice to say I haven't been at my 'up and at em best of late!

Ok, moan over!

Gull roost at TopHill Low

I took a trip out to TopHill Low nature reserve earlier in the week. Its a place I used to frequent fairly regularly when I was working out of East Yorkshire and having many a fond birding memory of the place I decided to pay a long overdue visit.

It's a bit of an odd reserve in that it's owned and I think managed by Yorkshire Water and with 2 huge reservoirs plus associated drinking water extraction plant on site it makes for an interesting juxtaposition with the surrounding wetlands alongside the River Hull. The reservoirs themselves hold many wildfowl and roosting gulls in the Winter, thousands of hirundines and regular tern species in Spring / Summer and when they drain the reservoirs every 5 years or so some spectacular numbers of waders in the Autumn. The surrounding reeds and woodland are complimented by several hides that overlook the half dozen or so well managed lagoons and both the river and surrounding fields are good for birds. Otters have been seen here very recently and even made the local news - Otters flooded out of home (a family party had been seen the day I was there) All in all it's a cracking spot and well worth a visit .... oh yes and one of my twin daughters, Sophie has worked there on and off for the past year or so as a volunteer and therefore contributed to it's marvellous upkeep!

Winter view of one of the Lagoons at Tophill Low (pic courtesy of Ian Traynor)



Drake Pochard

I only had a couple of hours there but managed a few good shots, especially of this drake Pochard as I peered over the reservoir wall. There were upwards of 800 Wigeon plus Tufted Ducks, Gadwall, Mallard and good numbers of Teal (c 400). A flock of about 60 Curlew was a good record and I also had a couple of Redshank. Plenty of Fieldfares and Redwings about busily feasting on the still abundant berries but still not got that 'gripper' of a shot of either - this is the best I could do before my fingers started to freeze up! (Fieldfare 1st pic, Redwing 2nd)

Of course it's much easier to take pictures of the berries that these thrushes were feeding on than of said birds themselves!!












If I'd been at the reserve a bit earlier I might have been lucky and got some pics of the Otters ..... here's some pics from the reserve's blog that I suspect were taken the same day I was there. It must have been some sight to see both adults and cubs slitherin across the ice!

 

 

Hurrah! Stonechats are back on Strensall Common

Always good to get a good bird on my local patch and the reappearance of Stonechats on Strensall Common after a barren couple of years was a noteworthy highlight of an otherwise uneventful tramp around in the cold and snow threatening weather this afternoon. Totally ubiquitous on the continent, Stonechats are rather less common as a breeding bird in the UK. There were 3 or 4 breeding pairs on the Common until that very cold winter of 2010 / 11 killed them off entirely so very promising to see them back again and fingers crossed for less severe weather this Winter and a successful season in the Spring.

 

32 high flying Pink Footed Goose heading South over the the reserve in classic V formation was another the only noteworthy record on a bitterly cold and bleak day out on the Common, not even a single dog walker .... must have been inclement!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the Lord Mayor's show at Wheldrake Ings

After my exploits last week over in Lancashire a few hours on one of my local patches at Wheldrake Ings had more than a hint of 'after the lord mayor's show'. On its day Wheldrake can throw up some cracking birds - Hen Harrier, Goshawk, Short Eared Owl and Lesser Spotted Woodpecker have all been seen here at this time of the year in the recent past but last Friday morning nothing much stirred from Bank Island (with water levels so high still this is just about the only place one can view anything of the reserve) but this passing Grey Heron looked quite good through the lens.

 

 

Plenty of Winter thrushes about though and have to say I've been trying (and failing) to get some good shots of Fieldfares so this one in flight was a welcome capture - shame the wings are a bit fuzzy but I love the detail on the head and the way his feet are tucked right in!

 

Maybe I need to be a bit more patient but I'm finding both Fieldfares and Redwings very skittish and its tricky getting something through the lens that fills the frame - being in a hide always helps of course but with all the hides being partially submerged on the reserve this next one, nice in its own way of course, is very typical of my efforts so far!

Redwings are proving even more difficult ... they're not as numerous this year as their bigger cousins plus I'm sure they hide behind twigs in the trees whenever they get within my camera's range!

My challenge for the week ahead is clear!