All around the Humberhead Levels - late Chiffchaffs, 1000s of waders, Whoopers and Great Egret on Gringly Carrs, and local waterways.

Mid November and a second wave of this blasted pandemic threatening to cause yet more hardship and suffering I found myself 'furloughed' again and spent a good deal of my spare time in and around the Humberhead Levels and Humber Estuary. Don't know about you, but when I think the Humber, I think 'mud' and lots of it - not a great tag line or an advert to draw in the tourists! Suits me but I suspect that I suffer from the same sort of unconscious bias, and although only mere 15 miles away as the crow flies, its far from a regular haunt. I should definitely make more of an effort!

Lapwings, North Cave Wetlands, 12/11/20

North Cave Wetlands, just inland from the Humber is most definitely somewhere I visit a lot, all the better on a sunny day and a convenient place to meet my old birding pal Mark before moving on. 

These Lapwings were looking resplendent with their iridescent plumage catching the light perfectly. Winter duck numbers have been building up nicely there recently with several hundred Teal and Wigeon along with smaller numbers of Shoveler, Gadwall, Tufted Duck and 5 Pochard

Common Teal, North Cave Wetlands, 12/11/20

Lots of Common Snipe there too and strangely enough they were nearly all huddled together on a small island with Teal. Don't bother counting - there were 21!

Common Snipe & Teal, North Cave Wetlands, 12/11/20

Common Snipe & Teal, North Cave Wetlands, 12/11/20

 

Other wading birds present included 10 or so Redshank and at least 3 Ruff. Other birds of note here included Siskin, Stonechat, Whooper Swan and a lot of Greylag Geese.

 

 

Me larkin about, Oak Hill CP. 12/11/20

Next up was a visit to a place neither of us had previously been to - Oak Hill Country Park, a former brickyard pond complex in Goole. A pleasant enough walk around and always good to go somewhere new but nothing much to report apart a Sparrowhawk, Great Crested Grebe and a few Tufted Ducks. If nothing else it was useful to get some location pics for my Yorkshire's Wildlife site. 

Oak Hill CP. 12/11/20

Oak Hill CP. 12/11/20

Oak Hill CP. 12/11/20

Looking out over the Ouse at Blacktoft, 12/11/20

We were hoping for a pub lunch at the Hope & Anchor at Blacktoft, on the banks of the River Ouse as it flows into the Humber, but sadly the pub was closed (sign of the times!). Always a good vantage point for watching the comings and goings on the river and views of Blacktoft Sands on the opposite bank, we made the best of the last rays of sunlight. It was cold and getting colder but we were rewarded by some mega Lapwing and Golden Plover flocks with c4,000 and c1,000 respectively, plus 4 Marsh Hariers and c1,500 Pink Footed Geese.

 

Far Ings, 17/11/20

A few days later I decided to pop over the Humber Bridge into Lincolnshire for visits to Far Ings and Alkborough Flats. I've been to both several times before but all too often these have been brief passing visits, so with an early start I was determined to give these two well known birding sites a good going over.

I was really hoping to get a Bittern and at Far Ings, but despite much searching and scanning, I was left empty handed and had to make do with good photo opportunity of a stalking Grey Heron.

Grey Heron, Far Ings, 17/11/20

Wrinkled Club, Far Ings, 17/11/20

Amazingly I noted a few still flowering plants around the visitor centre and wandering around the secluded tracks, a clump of fungi. Not been an especially good year for fungi this year to my mind with very few fungal displays on my regular patch. This one I've seen before, its a small delicate growth called Wrinkled Club.

Yellow Ox Eye Daisy, Far Ings, 17/11/20

The path that skirts the northern edge of Far Ings offers some great views of the Humber Estuary, the Bridge and across the reedbeds of the reserve, and as I was walking and admiring the views, I had a high flying big finch with prominent white wing bars flying over the Humber - a 95% Hawfinch for me but always flying away (one of those!). A few small flocks of Wigeon, Curlew and Redshank over the Humber and passing Pink Footed Geese overhead were enhanced by a lucky spot of a late Chiffchaff in with a tit flock. 

Wigeon, Humber Estuary, 17/11/20

I went into every hide and scanned, and waited, especially after talking to a chap who'd just seen a Bittern fly over and plop down into the reeds, but sadly I left with only record shots of the reserve and the ever present Humber bridge.

Far Ings, 17/11/20

 A brief stop off at South Ferriby en route to Alkborough produced the days best birds with 2 Spotted Redshank in with 40ish Common Redshank, c60 Avocets, 8 Black Tailed Godwit and plenty of Teal and Wigeon, all put up by a passing Marsh Harrier. 

Avocets, South Ferriby, 17/11/20

Teal, South Ferriby, 17/11/20

Pink Footed Geese, Alborough Flats, 17/11/20

Alkborough Flats is a large area of flood plains and reeds that sits on the southern bank of the Humber where the rivers Ouse and Trent merge. A well known Lincolnshire birding site with regular sightings of Bittern, Bearded Tit, Spoonbill as well as 1000s of wading birds. I certainly saw 1000s of waders, Golden Plover mainly and plenty of Pink Footed Geese, but alas not a sight nor sound of a hoped for Bearded Tit. I stayed dill dusk and counted 8 Marsh Harriers going to roost on the opposite bank at  Blacktoft Sands, and took some ok pics of the sun setting over the reeds.

Alborough Flats, 17/11/20

Golden Plover, Alborough Flats, 17/11/20

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stonechat, Alborough Flats, 17/11/20

 

Sunset over Alborough Flats, 17/11/20

Sunset over Alborough Flats, 17/11/20

Humberhead Levels

 

The Humber Estuary is but a small part of the area known as the Humberhead Levels, some 2,000 square kilometers of flat land extending both and south of the Humber. The moors of Hatfield and Thorne along with Skipwith Common and the Lower Derwent Valley are the best known nature reserves but there are many good spots in between, and a second catch up with Mark in the month took us on a tour of some of the sites around Gringly Carr, Nottinghamshire.

 

 

 

 

 

Bird of the day was undeniably a late Chiffchaff in the late afternoon sun, calling away and feeding on apids in a sycamore tree.

Chiffchaff, near Hayton, 19/11/20

Great Egret, Gringly Carr, 19/11/20

A Great Egret by a drain on Gringly Carr was a notable record but too far away to get decent pic, unlike some of the 240 or so Whooper Swans we saw on wet fields. 

 

 

 

 

 

Whooper Swan, Gringly Carr, 19/11/20

I'm toying with the idea of buying a canal boat as a live aboard and I'm that thought was not lost on Mark as he took me down the Chesterfield Canal for the last part of our tour around.

Canal Boat on the Chesterfield Canal, 19/11/20

Lurker under the bridge, Chesterfield Canal, 19/11/20

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

High Summer staying local in Yorkshire - juvenile cuckoo being fed, smart Peregrine, Common Tern and Great Egret, young birds and newly visited nature reserves.

Just before heading down to the Somerset Levels last month I was lucky enough to witness and photograph one of those 'once in a lifetime' nature moments - a young Cuckoo being fed by the surrogate bird who's nest it had presumably taken over. 

Juv Cuckoo, Wheldrake Ings, 08/07/20

One of the oldest tricks in nature's book, the Common Cuckoo lays a single egg in smaller bird's nest and when hatched the naturally bigger Cuckoo fledgling demands and gets more food and then gradually ousts any other chicks from the nest. The bird I saw, quite by chance as I was scanning some fields at Wheldrake Ings, was a young Cuckoo already out of the nest but still demanding food from its tireless surrogate parent, in this case a Reed Warbler. 

Juv Cuckoo calling for food, Wheldrake Ings, 08/07/20

Juv Cuckoo being fed by a Reed Warbler, Wheldrake Ings, 08/07/20

Inevitably after watching for a 2 or 3 minutes, during which our baby Cuckoo received 2 feeds, I ended up spooking the bird as I edged closer. Stupid of me really but the bird was ok, I heard it persistently calling for more food further down the river bank, and of course I had my shots in the can!

Had it not been for my first ever Cattle Egrets the following week that would have been a tough photographic act to follow for the whole summer, but of course, as I pursue a still largely solitary existence in these still perilous times, high summer has brought many highlights.

Greenshank, North Cave Wetlands, 06/07/20

As early as the first week of July (sometimes even earlier) there is a trickle of wading birds returning to the UK after breeding further north with numbers increasing through Aug and into September. I had Green Sandpiper, a nice looking Greenshank and a very good record of 12 Common Sandpipers in a single flock at North Cave Wetlands.

Common Sandpipers, North Cave Wetlands, 10/08/20

Evolving scrape, North Cave Wetlands, 29/07/20

Still evolving as a nature reserve, North Cave is a regular haunt of mine. It will almost double in size once all the undeveloped scrapes and lagoons are finished but even these areas are already attracting the wildlife with Common Terns, Little Ringed Plover and Avocets all making good use of these emerging habitats.

 

 

 

Common Tern, North Cave Wetlands, 29/07/20

 Even the Hares are finding something to like about these still barren stretches ..

Brown Hare, North Cave Wetlands, 29/07/20

With so many daylight hours to play and not always a lot happening I always find that high summer is a good time to visit new local places, and my new website on Yorkshire's wildlife still requiring lots of location pics, I've got around quite a few.

North Newbald Becksies, 24/07/20

North Newbald Becksies may look like just an overgrown field, but in fact it contains a spring that ensures keeps the ground there continually damp and does wonders for the summer vegetation and wild flowers, many of which I struggled to identify.

Sugar Mill Ponds and Eastrington Ponds are both former brickyard ponds come local nature reserves near Goole with some fishing at both. The ponds at Eastrington held more potential for me with no fishing on some of the ponds and lovely adjacent meadow.

Eastrington Ponds, 25/07/20

Galium Sp. Hedge Bedstraw? Eastrington Ponds, 25/07/20

Sugar Mill Ponds, 06/08/20

Saltmarshe Delph, 20/08/20

Saltmarshe Delph near Howden was another YWT site I hadn't visited before and was rewarded by a Kingfisher and 8 Great Crested Grebes all with several youngsters in tow. Nearby Howden Marsh, a local nature reserve, was perhaps the most interesting though - smallish but densely vegetated with reeds and other marshland plants. Although I didn't see one, Water Voles are regularly seen there and the boardwalk is great for gazing into the water for pond life. I saw several diving beetles, disturbed a probable Elephant Hawk Moth and heard a couple of Sedge Warblers there.

Howden Marsh, 25/07/20

A couple of trips out to the coast in the hope of some early autumn migrants did yield an elusive Pied Flycatcher, 2 or 3 Northern Wheatears, and this nicely posed Peregrine Falcon on the cliffs at Flamborough, one of 3 on the headland that day.

Peregrine Falcon, Flamborough, 18/08/20

Almost as smart but in a different way this Great Egret, still a relatively rare bird in my neck of the woods, seemed to be in playful mood at Tophill Low.

Great Egret, Tophill Low, 12/08/20

Great Egret, Tophill Low, 12/08/20

White (Bladder) Campion, North Cave, 06/07/20

 

Peak time for wild flowers of course, I post pictures of the same flowers year after year. Why? I'm not sure - every picture is a different image though and some of our UK flowers are just beautiful things to photograph and share!

Still can't identify a lot of what I see though - so many species (close on 4,000 in the UK), sub species and many hybrids to boot!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Purple Loosestrife, Wheldrake Ings, 09/08/20

Still to identify this one, some kind of mint species ..

Mint species, North Newbald Becksies, 24/07/20

Juv Goldfinch, Wheldrake Ings, 30/07/20

Just as perplexing at this time of the year are the increasing numbers of juvenile birds, often pale imitations of their parents, confusing us all with their strange calls. I struggled to figure out this drab looking finch at Wheldrake Ings until it turned around and a small yellow wing bar revealed it to be juvenile Goldfinch.

Every young bird is a small cause for celebration but they do pose some identification headaches, especially out of context - this juv Stonechat for instance was flycatching from the top of a tree and I had it down as juv Spotted Flycatcher at first.

 

Juv Stonechat, Thornton Ings, 24/08/20

Juv Common Tern, North Cave Wetlands, 21/08/20

Juv Little Ringed Plover, North Cave Wetlands, 29/07/20

Sedge Warbler, Wheldrake Ings, 30/07/20

With the summer nearly over my thoughts turn to the autumn and I hope and pray for an end to all this Covid business and who knows, a long overdue trip abroad may still be on the cards. Here's a few more of my photo memories of high summer 2020.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rosebay Willow Herb, North Cave Wetlands, 06/07/20

Peacock Butterfly on Budlea, Wheldrake Ings, 30/07/20

Reeds at Wheldrake Ings, 30/07/20

 

West Beck at Skerne Wetlands, 26/08/20

Marsh Harrier, Tophill Low, 12/08/20