Monday 4 July 2016

Sir David Attenborough pops into Askham Bog


There's only one way to kick off my early summer round up of wildlife happenings and boy did we need something to brighten up the wettest June on record, so a visit to Askham Bog by the one and only Sir David Attenborough as part of Yorkshire Wildlife Trust's 70th birthday celebrations was the most welcome of shining stars to lighten up our landscape!


Sir David Attenborough at Askham Bog, 17/06/16
Sir David was genuinely fascinated by Askham Bog's unique habitat describing it a jewel every bit as precious in conservation terms as York Minster and that local people should feel rightly proud of it. It was a good recruiting there the next day!

The great man and very special guest spoke at length and answered questions from a packed audience at York university later as part of our 70th birthday celebrations.












Follow that Baggins!

Tricky, but the obvious link has to be Askham Bog and despite the inclement weather all summer so far you can't stop a jewel from shining. Here's a few selected pics from the past month or so...

Ragged Robin, Askham Bog, 26/06/16


Brimstone butterfly, Askham Bog, 26/06/16
Ragged Robin, Askham Bog, 26/06/16
Brimstone butterfly, Askham Bog, 26/06/16






Large Skipper, Askham Bog, 19/06/16



Skullcap, Askham Bog, 19/06/16


Water Violets, Askham Bog, 30/05/16



Sir David Attenborough liking Askham Bog, 17/06/16

Wishful thinking to follow an Attenborough pic with a link to the Antarctic or perhaps Madagascar but the furthest I've been since I got back from Spain is the North Pennines... an overnighter in my tent for a bit of variety away from the flat lands of the vale of York and every bit as photogenic as Madagascar!


Grassholme Bridge, Lune Valley, Durham, 07/06/16
Grassholme reservoir, Lune Valley, Durham, 07/06/16

Grassholme reservoir, Lune Valley, Durham, 07/06/16


Bollihope burn, North Pennines, 07/06/16



Old quarry, Bollihope moor, North Pennines 07/06/16



A short trip cut even shorter by drizzle and mist the next morning but not before I'd bagged my first UK Dippers and Redstart of the year plus breeding Wheatear, Snipe, Woodcock, Common Sandpiper & Redshank, passage Spotted Flycatcher and the usual Curlew, Oystercatcher, Grey Wagtail & Meadow Pipit.


Northern Wheatear, North Pennines, 07/06/16

Common Snipe, North Pennines, 07/06/16

Meadow Pipit, North Pennines, 07/06/16

Common Snipe, North Pennines, 07/06/16


Spotted Flycatcher, North Pennines, 07/06/16




Common Whitethroat, Givendale, 03/06/16
Back down here in Yorkshire Wolds I'm not seeing anything like the number of insects on the wing you might expect in mid June and my guess is that many small birds, warblers for instance, are struggling to feed hungry mouths right now - This Common Whitethroat  seemed to be doing ok though ... a nice tasty bug was one of many I observed him taking back to a hidden nest.















Common Whitethroat, Givendale, 03/06/16
Sedge Warbler, Thornton Ings, 23/05/16


This Sedge Warbler was one of at least 4 singing birds along a short stretch of the Pocklington Canal back in late May. Not been back since so I don't know how well they've done -  I'll pop back but doubt that I'll get better pics than these classic 'Sedgie' profiles!





Sedge Warbler, Thornton Ings, 23/05/16


Sedge Warbler, Thornton Ings, 23/05/16
That's how I'd like to photograph a Moustached Warbler one of these days .. I can dream!








Thursday 2 June 2016

Spain road trip week 3 - Picos de Europa and Cantabria

We're now back in the UK, safe n sound, not as sun kissed as we'd like but that's another road trip under the belt - its been good to check out some familiar locations later in the year and also to check out a few areas neither of us have been before in a birding capacity. Northern Spain and the Picos de Europa is the main focus of this post and I'm pleased to report we had the sun shining for most of it!


For those that are interested in such things we ended up with a grand tally of 216 bird species for the 3 week trip, not too shabby! There's a link at the end of this posting with a full list.




Picos de Europa foothills from Potes

Anyone who's flown to Spain will doubtless have gazed down upon the Picos De Europa and marvelled at those jagged snow topped spurs, I know I have many a time, and often promised myself an explore there. Some of the scenery in and around the 'Picos' is truly jaw dropping with many peaks well over 2,000m and equally impressive gorges and caves. This was just the view from the campsite we stayed at nr Potes (pic right)




The wildlife was non too shabby too with Redstart, Firecrest, Hobby, Northern Bullfinch, Dipper and Wryneck all around the campsite with the last 3 all new species for the trip. I thought I had my first live snake of the trip whilst I was bumbling along a forest trail but it turned out to be one these little fellahs ... a Slow Worm or if you like a Legless Lizard

Slow Worm, Potes, 15/05/16
Cable car, Picos de Europa
By my reckoning those last three new birds took us to 199 species with still 4 or 5  days to go ...get in! Still,  if you want to tick off birds like Wallcreeper, Rock Thrush, Alpine Accentor and Snow Finch you have to get up high and in amongst those snow topped peaks and the only way to do that in the Picos is to take the car!






Snow Finch, Fuente De, 16/05/16




Sadly no Wallcreeper .. it was always gonna be tough on the tourist trail, no Rufous Rock Trush either but we sailed past the 200 mark with another 4 new species for the list .. Water Pipit, Alpine Chough, Alpine Accentor and a 'lifer' for the both of us - Snow Finch. Surprisingly big for a finch, we had a pair immediately we were up there and then Mark was lucky enough to have c25 fly right past him. In flight, the pure white patches in their wings was nothing short of dazzling!

The Alpine Accentors were confiding, relatively numerous and a few were ringed as were some of the Alpine Choughs


Snow Finch, Fuente De, 16/05/16

 


 
Alpine Accentors, Fuente De, 16/05/16

Water Pipit, Fuente De, 16/05/16

Alpine Chough, Fuente De, 16/05/16


Northern Wheatear, Fuente De, 16/05/16
Northern Wheatears have been almost ever present wherever we've been so I shouldn't have been surprised to see a few up here, however incongruous they seemed surrounded by all that snow!

A nice male Black Redstart, one of several, topped off a cracking couple of hours birding above the tree line and up amongst the clouds and, as expected, the landscapes were simply breath taking!


Black Redstart, Fuente De, 16/05/16

 

Fuente De, 16/05/16

Fuente De, 16/05/16

Fuente De (view from), 16/05/16





Long Lipped Tongue Orchid, Cantabria, 17/05/16
From the Picos we headed back towards journey's end and Bilbao, but not before a couple of days chilling out on the Cantabrian coast near the fishing town of Santona. En route there we stopped at a lay by for some lunch and spotted these amazingly shaped orchids in with red clover.

They're 'Long Lipped' Tongue Orchids, fairly widespread around Iberia but a first for me. Weird looking aren't they?






Long Lipped Tongue Orchid, Cantabria, 17/05/16



Peregrine Falcon fledglings, Montehano, 18/05/16
We camped out across the bay from Santona at Montehano, an historical mound, where there's an old quarry and a monestary, La Convento de Montehano. The weather had turned sour again and the bay held precious few of the many wading birds we'd been expecting here but the distinctive shrill 'kee-ark' call of a Peregrine hinted at a nest site and something to look at. Took a wee while but finally we located 3 fledglings high up on a grassy ledge.

Very average 'record' pics in poor light and at distance, but you can clearly see that they're all well developed and I would say almost ready for the off. We watched the site for a couple of hours or so hoping for one of the adults to return with food but it never happened so we withdrew in case they were spooked.

Peregrine Falcon fledglings, Montehano, 18/05/16

A few small flocks of Whimbrel turned up the same day, incredibly our first of the trip, and we also had Ringed Plover, Curlew, Redshank in small numbers plus a Black Necked Grebe on one of the many water courses around the marismas here. I walked around the monastery snapping a few more wild flowers then climbed the Montehano hill and got some landscape pics of the area.

Mountain Kidney Vetch, Montehano, 18/05/16

Fairy Foxglove, Montehano, 18/05/16

Ivy Leafed Toadflax, Montehano, 18/05/16

Santona (from Montehano)
Escalante (from Montehano)



Marismas de Santona (from Montehano)
Convento de Montehano

With a ferry to catch the next day it certainly felt like journey's end but what a journey - from the North to the South of Spain and back again, a distance of appx 2,500 kilometres in 3 weeks and in total 214 bird species recorded. It was non stop, even the ferry back brought us 3 more birds - Guillemot, Turnstone (on the ferry itself!)and Arctic Skua and just off the ferry at Southsea I had a fabulous photographic finale with a summer plumaged adult Mediterranean Gull feeding on the beach with common Black Headed Gulls.
 
 
Mediterranean Gull, Southsea, 20/05/16


Mediterranean Gull, Southsea, 20/05/16
 
Mediterranean Gull (Left), Southsea, 20/05/16

Mediterranean Gull, Southsea, 20/05/16
What a beauty!
 
As promised then here's the final species list for the whole trip - just click on the link