2hrs of drama at Pond Hide, Wheldrake Ings

Ah! Wheldrake Ings, a truly awesome place that will be forever stamped in my mind as bird watching heaven! It was here, some 30+ years ago and armed with a 2nd hand pair of binoculars, that I rediscovered birding and turned away from the deviant excesses of youth and if, God forbid, I die tomorrow on the road to Spurn, I will likely haunt the place ... in a genial sort of way of course!

I've tramped around just about every square inch of the place in my time and likely as not been places I shouldn't have been, but at this time of the year there's only one place to be ... Pond Hide. I've sat in there, often alone, for hours on end sometimes and although you'll never get the numbers of birds that drop into equivalent local patches places like Blacktoft Sands or even Tophill Low, at this time of year there's always drama.

So here's an hour or 2 at Pond Hide on Sept 4th in pictures and in the good company of me old chum Mark Paine.



Black Tailed Godwit
 

Although the evening was warm, sultry even, with high cloud the light was never brilliant but ok for picking up the best of the waders ..... here's a pick n mix of waders  ...Black Tailed Godwit, Green Sandpiper, Snipe & Ruff.

Green Sandpiper





Pair of Snipes, Wheldrake Ings

Green Sandpiper2

Ruff


Not sure about the Green Sand but pretty sure that the Godwits and Ruffs bred locally and not migrants. Same thing with the Common Snipes, declining nationally as a breeding bird but doing well at Wheldrake.

Fairly typical and 'so so' selection of waders for this time of year. No sign of the Great White Egret that hung around here for a few days last week but our patience was rewarded with a bit of Wheldrake drama over the last hour before the light went.

First off, one of the Grey Herons that had been stalking around suddenly got all animated and as we focused our bins on the commotion we realised what all the fuss was about .... it was grappling with a young Pike!

Grey Heron with Pike

 



Never have I seen a Heron grapple with anything this big! 

 

 

Grey Heron and Pike2

Grey Heron with Pike in gullet!

The fish was pretty well impaled but even so I fully expected it to somehow wriggle free .... certainly didn't expect to see such a monster swallowed whole ... but I was wrong!























Shortly afterwards there was yet more commotion when Marsh Harrier flew in and took something just beyond the bank. Looked like a young female to me.


Marsh Harrier, juv female?

 

Water Rail, Wheldrake Ings

In the decidedly murky light we were then treated to better than the usual views of a reasonably common bird here ... but all too often the view is of the 'arse end disappearing into reeds' type of the elusive Water Rail

Water Rail2, Wheldrake Ings

Roe Deer, Wheldrake Ings

Just time for something calm  ... a couple of Roe Deer, one of them a young un' walking on for an evening drink.

Roe Deer, Wheldrake Ings

Sometimes sitting in the hides at Wheldrake, or anywhere, can be a bit of a drag, but if you give it time, invariably something happens!

Last pic .... the old Windmill at Pond Hide at sunset.

Windmill at Pond Hide, Wheldrake Ings

Wild & wonderful Fen Bog in the North York Moors - wet feet, a wasp identified and less said about the memory card the better!

I'm so loving this everlasting Summer we seem to having here in the UK .... I can't quite believe how lush and green everything still is and how many flowers, butterflies and dragonflies I've photographed over the past few weeks... there's going to have to be round up of the best of these images soon but for now here's a promised post on Fen Bog.

 

I was very kindly shown around this YWT reserve by Robin Marrs, a good guy I met recently on Trust business, and its a place I've been meaning to get to for a while. So on my way up to Teesdale a few weeks back I called in on Rob who lives nearby in an idyllic setting just a stones throw from the locally famous landmark Hole of Horcum, and we had a glorious late afternoon tramp across this picturesque piece of wet heathland in the North Yorks Moors national nature reserve. Situated between the summits of Tom Cross Rigg and Crag Stone Rigg its one of the many glacial valleys in the area and takes the form of a long curving piece of land that is bounded at both ends by moorland streams.

 



'The Mallard' steam engine

On the Western boundary edge of the reserve lies the North Yorks Moors railway so if you're into steam trains as well as wildlife you might get an added bonus and catch a glimpse of a rather special and fast flying duck! I did the journey once and its one of the best railway lines around ...  just click on the link above if you fancy it some time

I must at this point take no credit for any of the photographs in this post. Apart from the 2 above which are in the public domain, all the following were taken by Robin Marrs. Combination of senior blond moment and faulty memory card is my excuse and believe me its best left that way!

 

The lower lying reaches of the reserve, although looking quite dry, proved to be quite wet! Shortly after admiring this impressive clump of Marsh Mint and as we strode across what looked like a good path, I (definitely the more foolhardy one) became seriously 'bogged down' almost to my shins in some really brown and wet stuff!

Marsh Mint, Fen Bog

We laughed of course but with no phone signal and being in a remote place we both reflected on the potential danger, especially to a lone and unsuspecting walker, of being abroad in such places. Anyway, no harm done but boy did I sink!

Precious few birds around but we did see a big raptor float down the valley that could have been a Goshawk .... it just didn't have the jizz of a Sparrowhawk to me and so wish I could have got a better and longer view - it'll have to go down as a Spar!



Ichneumon Wasp (Enicospilus ramidulus), Fen Bog

Smaller scale but none the less interesting because neither of us could identify it, was this attractive looking winged insect. I've since posted the pic on a couple of insect forums and turns out this is an Ichneumon Wasp, one of the Ophionines and its specific name is .... wait for it, its catchy .....  its Enicospilus ramidulus and what's more its a common parasitoid of hadenine noctuid caterpillars. Amazing how many experts there are out there ... you may not be turned on by the science, and not sure I am .... I just enjoyed looking at the thing, but all that came back to me within minutes of posting Rob's pic on a couple of Facebook insect forums - that's the amazing thing to me!



Fox Moth caterpillar, Fen Bog

This may or may not be one of the caterpillars said wasp preys upon (been 5 mins now and not received an answer on the forum ... but it is nigh on midnight) ... hang on, I have a message ... nope, this fella is safe from the Ichneumon, its a Fox Moth caterpillar (well done Rob!) and our wasp prefers Broom Moth caterpillars ... how educative is Facebook? I am truly impressed!


Ok, no id forums required for this attractive flower, common in the right habitat and although past its best still good to see. Its Bog Asphodel of course.

Bog Asphodel, Fen Bog

Less obvious but no less attractive in its own way is the diminutive Stitchwort, one of those 'micro flowers' that when you get down and have a really good look, reveal such delicate and subtle beauty in their minute form.

Stitchwort, Fen Bog

So that was Fen Bog, and thoroughly enjoyable it was too, another YWT reserve ticked off (only 64 to go!) and many thanks again to Rob for showing me the place, feeding me and letting me park my camper on his driveway for the night. It was all good order.

Right then, I'm off to the Inaugural Annual Bird Migration Festival at Spurn Point over this coming w/e ... tickets still available by the way if you want to come along ( see here for details and itinery - Spurn Point Bird Migration Festival ) .... should be a cracking event and although I'll be there in a working capacity I'm sure there will be plenty of time for birding, photography, mingling and the rest .. and the guitar is going too so maybe some songs from Baggins around the hog roast!

 

 

 



Upper Teesdale - beautiful scenery, wild moors, old lead mines, limestone pavement and more!

Any area of the UK that's been recommended to me from not one, not two, but three guys I've met recently as a great place for wildlife and photography just had to be given some 'van time'! The area we're talking about is around Middleton in Teesdale in county Durham and those guys weren't wrong ... I spent an excellent few days there last week, just me and the van exploring the beautiful scenery, flora & fauna of Upper Teesdale. Oh and I had a piece of feedback from someone whilst I was working on Askham Bog .... 'like the blog mate but you need more photographs' .. and I suspect he meant less rambling discourse too but was too polite to say! Fair comment mate, more pics in this post and making a conscious effort right now not to babble on! Here's a few introductory scenic photographs.


River Tees with Mickleton and Romaldkirk Moor in the background



River Tees at Forest in Teesdale, upstream

River Tees at Forest in Teesdale, downstream

Looking South from Middleton in Teesdale towards Romaldskirk Moor

Bowlee Beck, Bowlees

 Pretty nice I think you'll agree, that last pic of Bowlees Beck is where I had a pleasant snooze in the sunshine and awoke to see a Sparrowhawk, one of several I saw during my time up there, swoop down the valley in search of some poor unsuspecting passerine.



Wheatear - immature female?
 

Ah yes, birds, my first love! Well the middle of August is never the best the times for bird spotting but I had a few good moments with resident breeders. I expected and got some reasonable distant shots of Wheatears .... this was one of a family party I stalked for ages looking for a decent shot but they were well shy. Think this is an immature female but not sure.













Good to see plenty of young Lapwings about on the upland slopes and moors ... it looks like they've bred well after a very poor year in 2012.

Hundreds of Starlings about too, I've noticed that they often hang around with Lapwings in the countryside and they often move around together ... if you look closely there's even one that's snuck onto the above shot!



Juvenile Mistle Thrush

Upland areas are also usually good for Mistle Thrushes too and at this time of year they gang together in big family parties. This one, probably a young un, was one of 26 in a single field.
















Juv Spotted Flycatcher, Bowlees

Best of the birds I managed to snap was this Spotted Flycatcher, again it was one of a family group (of 4) and probably a youngster judging by it's tameness. Not the most picturesque of settings but they do like barbed wire fences as launching pads for catching passing flies, this one was taken just outside the visitor centre at Bowlees.

Spotted Flycatchers have declined rapidly in the UK over the past few years but I suspect this has been a good year for them. I had another family party on my way back to Yorkshire nr Riveaux Abbey and I know that they've bred at Askham Bog this year too.












A few other birding highlights of the trip that obviously eluded my lens included a single Black Grouse and a Hobby up at Cowgill Resevoir, a single Peregrine at Bowlees, Red Kite just outside Middleton and a fleeting but pretty special Merlin flying off a fencepost and away on Harwood Moor.
 
Bit of Flora anyone? No not margarine silly .... wild flowers and the like!

Always good to stumble across something you haven't seen before or you can't put a name to, and having not paid nearly enough attention to the plants and flowers I've walked past over the years (mainly because my head is usually in the clouds looking for birds), I'm finding that I stumble across allsorts of things that require a google search. How great is that ... a whole new raft of things to find out about, and that's without my new found interest in dragonflies, butterflies, moths!

Ok, yes my friend on Askham Bog, I'm rambling again and there have now been precisely 115 words of babble since the last photograph so without further ado here's my couple of flower ticks for the week.

First up is was this totally unexpected flower growing in some profusion alongside this little stream nr Bowlees. It looked so extraordinary, incongruously colourful in an otherwise bleak landscape of rock and moor. Its common name, somewhat disappointingly is Monkey Flower, and its a hybrid form of Mimulus, a native flower of North America.

Mimulus (Monkey Flower) hybrid

Mimulus (Monkey Flower) hybrid

 



Mimulus alongside a babbling brook in Upper Teesdale

I don't know enough about it of course, but from what I can gather it's a fairly common garden flower and maybe it's just escaped into the wild up here, but whether its an invasive or a semi naturalised species I love it and who can argue with its presence in such a setting?!





















Here's a little flower I nearly trod on whilst I was walking a bit of the Pennine Way nr the Forest in Teesdale before deciding to have a closer look. Its called Bright Eye and one of those 'micro flowers' that often get overlooked but up close and personal it's a true beauty.


Bright Eye, beside the River Tees

Teesdale is also stack full of industrial and archaeological history, too much to go into any detail in a mere blog, but its amazing what you see around and about whilst walking about.

Take this for instance ...its an old and discarded lead mine. Hard & dirty business up here during the 19th century but 200 years on, easy pickings for us 21st century photo tourists!


Old lead mine, Ettersgill.

Even further back in time (and I think we might be talking really big numbers here!) here is a mighty fine example of 'Limestone Pavement' .... a geological phenomena caused by the scarring of the land by retreating glaciers during the last ice age some 10,000 years ago (told you we were talking big numbers!). Malham Cove in the Yorkshire Dales is probably the biggest and best known example in this country but this small area at Whorleton is a good example.

Limestone Pavement, Whorleton



 Whorleton was one of the places that was recommended to me to visit as a place of beauty, I wasn't expecting the limestone pavement, that was a bonus, and being the middle of the day there wasn't much bird action but wow what a beautiful place ....  so secluded, perfect for a swim, and I'd been on the road for 3 days without a wash so why not! 





Whorleton, Upper Teesdale

All in all a very pleasurable and profitable few days and for sure I'll be back now that I know where to find breeding Black Grouse and Merlin. For anyone that's interested this is the general area I explored (just click on this link .....Upper Teesdale) ... and many thanks to Robin Marrs for his hospitality on day 1, showing me around Fen Bog and for giving me an insight into Bing maps ... awesome mate! I'd be doing Fen Bog an injustice if I tagged those pics on to the end of this so will cover it a separate post.

 

Last but not least, here's the Van shot!

The van, just outside Middleton in Teesdale

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Burton Riggs nr Scarborough and an encounter with a Painted Lady

Still in catch up mode (story of my life!) after laptop crash and near miss of all my photographs. I've now done the sensible thing and bought myself an external hard drive to house all my images - I'm sure most photographers do this but if you don't do it now! All it took in my case was a silly click on a tempting email link and baboom, laptop out of commission ... backing up your data might sound like a chore but boy is it a heart ache when you think you've lost everything.

Ok, less of my gadget anxiety, here's a quicky post from a pleasurable half day at Burton Riggs just outside of Scarborough where I was lending a hand on a profile raising event for the reserve.

Not much of a chance to do any considered picture taking but once again it was the butterflies that caught the eye and in particular this nice Painted Lady, my first for many a year ...

Painted Lady, Burton Riggs

In the same patch of marginal scrub so favoured by the old lepidoptra we spotted this cracking male Common Blue

Common Blue, Burton Riggs

Burton Riggs is a site undergoing some improvement measures under the watchful eye of reserves manager Elizabeth Round and I can certainly see lots of potential at this gravel pit site. I also found out that Elizabeth plays a Kahon, in fact I saw her perform at last weeks show at Thornton Dale with her band,so naturally I enquired if she was available to play in my combo but sadly she has her hands full with them at the moment... the search for our beat section carries on!

Here's a parting shot from the Riggs ... literally as I was leaving in fact - a nice Common Darter conveniently resting on a fence.

Common Darter, Burton Riggs

The straightforward beauty of Thorne Moor

Cracking good day out with my pal Mark on Thorne Moor yesterday ..... lots of laughs, chat and putting the world to rights in both of our respective universes and as we biked across this magical and thoroughly underrated expanse of reclaimed peat-land we concluded that no matter how much we try to lead a good and worthwhile life in our semi retirement years, its our children and their travails that matter the most and keep us from sleeping too easy. It was ever thus and always will be but always good to share the load!

Don't worry folks, I'm light years away from launching timbobaggins.familyrelations.org, its just not gonna happen.... no scope for good pics for a start! Nature in the raw has a knack of rendering down the most complex of human relationship problems to mere squabbles in the playground so before I get tempted to launch timbobaggins.philosophicalnonsense.net, just enjoy the straightforward beauty of Thorne Moor!

Here you go .... what a vista!

Thorne Moor is part of an extensive area of lowland peat / bog (nearly 3,000 hectares in size .. that's big!) and is the remains of a huge glacial lake that formed after the last ice age and covered a huge chunk of what is now South Yorkshire.

Go visit! .... its extraordinarily rich in wildlife and a truly primordial place.

Regular breeding birds include Common Crane, Hobby, Nightjar, Nightingale, Woodlark to mention but a few (there have even been breeding Bluethroat records here!). The insect life is very rich with many species of butterfly, moth, dragonfly recorded as well as unique flora. Several species of deer compete with other mammals such as fox, hare, water vole and there are also common lizards (we saw 20 or so of these) and adders in good numbers.

It was another warm and largely sunny day in this glorious summer we're having when we were there and being August the birds were skulking and scarce but we had good views of Hobby, Marsh Harrier and a few common warblers (Willow / Chaffs, Reed & Whitethroats). A family party of Shoveler ducks was nice and a single Stonechat was a good record. Green Sandpiper, Snipe and Lapwing were about too but my camera was once again focused on less flighty beings ... butterflies mainly and here's a few from the 15 species seen on the day.

Common Blue (male)

Small Copper

Large Skipper

Peacock

  

 



Black Darter

As well as those beauties we also saw stacks of dragonflies, most of which I'm still struggling with in terms of identification but certainly lots of Southern and Brown Hawkers (far too quick on the wing to capture!) and also lots of Black Darters which were a little easier ....












The one thing to watch out for and certainly take precautions against on Thorne in Summer are the midges, mosquitoes and other biting nasties, especially the Clegg Flies ... actually quite interesting to look at but by jove do they bite! So if you do visit take some insect repellent and the strongest you can afford!

Hover Flies look as if they might bite you but are of course quite harmless and up close very attractive. Fascinating creatures, fascinating lifestyles and with over 270 distinct species in the UK alone they're a big challenge... so if you fancy a new hobby?!!

The common one in our gardens is the Marmalade Fly

 Got that? Another common one is the Sun Fly and there were lots of these on Thorne and they especially liked to hover round Ragwort petals. I spent a few minutes checking them out and got this pleasing image of one.... slightly overexposed to catch the fly's intimate details!

Sun Fly on Ragwort
 





Phragmite Reeds, Breighton (nr Selby)

And finally, dear nature lovers, on my back home on a gloriously sunny evening, the like of which reminded me of childhood days, I felt the need to prolong the wandering so I popped into Breighton by the river Derwent. Lovely stroll by the river bank, more butterflies, Sedge & Reed Warblers chattering and the reeds themselves looking tall and resplendent. Walking back up the bank I looked up and saw my van, and remembered a promise to myself that I haven't kept .... to take a picture of my van 'in situ' whenever I go anywhere good. Well I forgot again as far as Thorne Moor is concerned but hey I remembered, so here she is at Breighton!

The van that takes me places!