Off birding to the Algarve!

Gear is packed .......

 

and all roads lead to ...........................

One of these is hired ......

with one of these in the glove compartment......

Next post in about 2 weeks time, hopefully with some mega spring passage pics of, well just about anything and not just birds, I'm memory card laden so looking for for some good pics of Portuguese life n landscapes too. Not a huge deal to report in the past couple of days, the poor weather has brought neither a Chiff or a Chaff for me, nothing but a few good waders in the rain - 50 Ruff and 70 Dunlin in amongst Lapwings and Goldies at North Duffield and these good Whoopers at Thorganby yesterday ..........

Siskins in the garden bring back memories & a nap hand of goodies at Askham Bog

As a young lad I remember my parents allowing me to camp overnight in the garden for the very first time. I'd just got into birdwatching and so thrilled because I'd rigged up a homemade bird table, loaded it with food I thought birds might like to eat (I have a memory of old xmas cake!), and located it just outside the tent in the hope of attracting all manner of things. In my 11yr old mind this meant anything from Eagles to Hoopoes of course ..... and of course I was to be disappointed .... but I was rewarded at first light by some birds I didn't recognise at my bird table, and that was the day I begged my parents to buy me a bird identification field guide!

Some time and much begging later I was pleased to identify my mystery birds as Siskins. That was more than 40 years ago and although I've seen many Siskins since, I've never actually had another one in my garden ... until the other day that is, when I had a pair on the feeders and then in next door's tree. You rarely get such good views of these terrific little finches, normally they're flying over in flocks from tree to tree and I was just as thrilled to see these as I was the ones spyed from my tent all those years ago!

Here's a couple of shots of the male in next door's tree ....

  

Nice when things like that come full circle.

Pretty awful weather this weekend and glad I'm on holiday and not working Askham Bog as it would have been rubbish with most folk staying put indoors, but last Sunday was ok down on the bog - plenty of visitors and a healthy number signed up plus a nap hand of good bird pics in the sun!

 

Chaffinches all over the place and this one was looking particularly splendid .....




















I normally shy away from taking pictures of birds at feeding stations because of that 'staged' look but had to make an exception with these exquisite Long Tailed Tits.


















Here's a common but often overlooked bird, always one or two skulking around in UK gardens and nice see them slightly out of context perched in a tree ... its a Hedge Sparrow or Dunnock. Not actually a sparrow at all, this understated wee bird is an accentor - a family of birds that normally inhabit mountainous areas with the Alpine Accentor being its nearest relative .. never going to get one of those at Askham Bog!







Ok folks, ready to enter the 'Is it a Willow or a Marsh Tit' debate? Well I have to confess to being not as good as I should be on separating these two similar birds and I wouldn't wish the vagaries of identification and splitting the two on anyone but at the risk of being publicly humiliated by the birding world I'm sticking my neck out and saying this is a Willow Tit ... light wing panels, clean cheeks, unglossy cap ... please tell me I'm right expert birders! (actually I heard this one call so know darn well its a Willow!). Anyone interested in what is a bit of hot topic in the birding world, so much so that the distribution of both species is now really muddled, here's Richard Broughton's bible on separating the two - 'separation of marsh and willow tit in britain, a review' 

 

 

Last but by no means least, I've been trying to get even a half decent picture of a Wren for months at Askham Bog .... they tend to creep around under the boardwalks a lot but occasionally pose for a few seconds before flitting away, so I was reasonably pleased to get this one. Would have been better perched on a mossy tree stump or something but the wire fence just about works for me!

 

 

Early signs of Spring at Wheldrake Ings

Gazing out of my window upon cold and cloudy skies and a very wet garden I have to remind myself that it will be the first day of Spring in just 3 days time on March 20th! Yes, next Wednesday is down on the calender as the vernal equinox - where daylight hours begin to match those of darkness and the Northern Hemisphere warms up.... hurray, bring it on!

The very first signs of Spring have been with us for a a few weeks already of course with Snowdrops, Crocuses and Hazel Catkins bringing a bit of colour to the countryside and I noticed the Willow trees at Wheldrake coming into bud earlier this week. Haven't seen any Sand Martin records for Yorkshire yet but one in Liecestershire on the 14th with several more further South shows they are on their way up and they've had Swallows in Cornwall, Dorset and Ireland already!

Apart from my truly enjoyable working hours at Askham Bog, I've not been out much recently ....been taking advantage of this pre Spring lull to get a few things done around the house and when I have ventured abroad its still felt like Winter to me!

Dodging the snow flurries at Wheldrake Ings last week was kinda fun and as I sought refuge in Tower Hide my reward was a couple of drake Scaups in with the rest of the wildfowl. Too far away to photograph sadly because as you can from this view the light was good in between the showers.

These roaming Whooper Swans were a little closer (but not much!) and managed a couple of half decent shots with a lucky capture of a bit of argy bargy swan behaviour!

It was a shame the good light didn't remain long enough to get more pics because I was after some wildfowl in flight. There was a healthy number of Pintail on the reserve (I reckoned about 100) and I was dying to get one of those but had to settle for Comon Teal and a pretty grubby and hastily shot fly over of a small group of Pink Footed Geese

Common Teal

Pink Footed Geese

 

It was certainly no day for a surprise early Swallow or anything like that - but then Spring comes in many guises; depends of course where you are on this planet as to what may be that harbinger of warmer days ahead,but as I look out again on to settling snow in my garden, I'm secretly chuffed to have caught a few of Wheldrake's own symbols of Spring .... Curlews calling and drifting overhead
























Pussy Willow starting to bud and alongside the pathways

 

...... and the occasional Oystercatcher probing for worms that are themselves starting to wriggle again.



















Highlight birds on the day were some good flocks of waders with maybe 120 Dunlin, 20ish Ruff, about 500 Lapwing, 50 Golden Plover and 2 Snipe. Still plenty of ducks and geese about with maybe 100 Pintail, 70 Gadwall, 150 Shoveler, 200 Tufted Duck, 2 Scaup, 8 Goldeneye, 150 Pochard in amongst the many hundreds of Wigeon, Teal and Mallard. With a brisk and chilly Easterly blowing a couple of hours in Tower Hide was not good for my hands and as the light began to fade I gave up on trying to pick out anything special like a Glaucous or Med Gull amongst the other gulls coming into roost and sought refuge!



Road trip to Hampshire ...Brents & Sanderlings a plenty plus a couple of goons!

Another whistle stop road trip down to Hampshire to visit friends and squeeze in a bit of birding last week. We shouldn't be surprised I suppose but once again the weather was against us for all but a brief window of sunshine on Wednesday afternoon / eve, otherwise it was cold and decidedly gloomy! Great views of Red Kites coming into roost in the mist on the way down nr Newbury and we must have topped 20 in total whilst journeying ... they really have spread far and wide in the UK and always a treat to see.

Farlington Marshes is always a handy reserve to visit down there and although the morning was grey there were plenty of waders, ducks and geese about plus a couple of Song Thrushes and a Sparrowhawk.

Fly by Redshank

The geese were almost all Brents with maybe something like 300 on the water and many hundreds flying overhead ...... now I have to say that the light they were flying in was as gloomy as a graveyard on a wet Sunday afternoon, so most post production needed and not quite sure what I did with this but they look better than they ever did in the viewfinder!

This was a loner..... there's always one looking for a passport pic!




Talking of passport pics don't use these boys, you might get arrested for more than being in possession of  living head fur and a cockney rebelesque 70's pose!!

  The birds they must have pulled in their prime!

 

Ok, I'll get some stick for that but back to some birds with feathers as well as a pulse here's a few cracking Sanderling pics on Eastney Beach ..... and for a few hours the sun did shine!

Sanderlings are one of my favourite waders, nearly always doing something .... this little tussle over a juicy mollusc went on for several minutes

 

Until the victor flew away with the spoils!

 

Closely followed by a hungry gang .........

 

 

And then time for a rest .... didn't notice at the time but one of the Sanderlings has colour coded tags on its legs. I found a site on the net where you can report such tags and obtain a history of the birds movements (http://www.waderstudygroup.org/res/project/sand-colrings-en.php) so hopefully I'll get something back soon.

 

We had a single Mediterranean Gull fly past but sadly too quick for me to get the camera on it ..... Here's a few 'too far away but reasonable images' 

 

Oystercatcher feeding on a jetty at Eastney beach

Hardly in the 'reasonable' category but this was the only Sparrowhawk and only posting because Mark missed it ... here you go mate!

Mr & Mrs Common Teal out for a stroll

 

Later in the day we went back to Farlington Marshes and were rewarded by an impressive gull roost of 2000 plus Black Headed Gulls and many more waders including both Golden and Grey Plover, Dunlin, Knot and Black Tailed Godwit.

 

Then the sun went down and it was time to think about heading back to Yorkshire!

Odds n Sods - picture postcard robins, tits in boxes and Melbourne floods

Popping down to the South coast for a few days with my mate Mark .... any chance of an early Sand Martin seems to have been banished with this cold snap but hey you never know and we're sure to see something down there. One probable destination will be Pagham Harbour but we'll only have 1 full days birding so we'll need to focus our minds as well as our binocs and lenses!!

Post to come in the next few days of course but meanwhile, still in catch up mode here's a few odds n sods I've been had hanging around that haven't quite 'fitted' into recent articles.

Here's a rather nice Kestrel along the Pocklington Canal cocking its head and looking for prey down on the ground below

I have a growing collection of Robin photographs from Askham Bog and not looked through them all yet these two seemed worthy of keeping ......

 

Same location and one day I accidentally left the top off my box of bird feed  ..... the result was a bit like wasps around your pub garden lunch on a late Summer day! Great, Blue, Marsh, Coal and Long Tailed Tit plus Robin and Blackbird all proceeded to tuck in until eventually capsizing the whole box. This was the Coal Tit's turn ....

 

When the floods were in full swing a month or so ago I thought I'd record the water levels down at Thornton Ings, nr Melbourne. Both of these views are looking West from Church Rd with the second taken later in the day and catching the late afternoon sunshine in the sedges.

 

Spring-like then Winter gets a grip again in the Lower Derwent Valley

I've been getting a tad bogged down with masses of photographs to process now that I've decided to start shooting in RAW format ... this means using software to deal with the resulting unprocessed images (I'm using Lightroom 4.2) and as yet I'm still feeling like a novice with it. It's taking me ages and beginning to affect my social life!

So, very much in 'catch up' mode and starting with a couple of recent visits to the Lower Derwent Valley, here's the first of a few quick posts with mainly pics and less narrative.

Day 1 (Feb 15th)

As I'm sure you've noticed there's been 2 or 3 days recently when the sun has shone, the needle has crept up the mercury and Spring feels like a returning friend. On such a day last week it was a pleasure to be out and about and I was rewarded with some good birds including my first singing Chaffinches of the year at Aughton Church and in another churchyard (Bubwith) I saw these lovely Crocuses along with the many Snowdrops that have been popping up everywhere for some weeks now.

 

A little less Springlike and never the most photogenic of birds this White Fronted Goose did in fact make a reasonable portrait and was one of 5 feeding alongside Greylags on the grass at Ellerton. There was also a single Pink Footed Goose in there too but too far off to photograph.

As I was watching the geese and hoping to catch a glimpse of the Bean Geese that have been around I clocked a Common Buzzard flying low over the flood water .... it scared and scattered all the geese and ducks but that solitary Lapwing (on 2nd pic) was no scaredy cat and saw it off down the valley!

 

A bit further along the valley at Bubwith the flood waters were still high but there is now enough dry land for waders to peck around on and along with the usual mass flocks of Lapwing and Golden Plover there were smaller groups of Dunlin and Ruff being put up constantly by these microlights that seem to be more common these days .. easier to photograph (if I was into them) than roaming Peregrine Falcons .... also getting more numerous and also responsible for putting up the waders on a regular basis, but I don't mind that, I could watch Peregrines all day!

I did manage to take some reasonable shots of a couple of Black Tailed Godwits that went up amongst all the rest of the waders .... a good record for here and and another symbol of the approaching Spring because I'd like to think this was a pair looking for a prospective nesting site. The first pic is best, the second is cropped and over sharpened too much but evocative all the same and the 3rd, whilst not a great pic for all sorts of reasons I had to include because of the setting with Drax power station in the background!

Day 2 (Feb20th)
The fickle trickery of the British climate and how it can change so quickly should not really be a surprise to us anymore of course, but after that brief promise of Spring, we're once again thrust back into chilliness and as a bitterly cold wind blows in from Scandinavia we're reminded in no uncertain terms that Winter still has a firm grasp. I can only wonder in a hopeful way that those beautiful Crocuses (or is it Crocii?) I snapped last week are bearing up!

Northern Swans meanwhile are still grazing the fields and yesterday, wrapped up warm, I was determined to get a closer look at a herd of Whooper Swans I spotted from a distance last week. Driving around where I thought they should be I finally located them in a field nr the hamlet of Menthorpe. There were exactly 70 in total and here's 4 that were in range of my lens ...
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..... a couple of bonus Berwick's Swans in amongst this lot too. They're slightly smaller and have a rounded rather than pointed yellow markings on their bills (extreme right on the pic below)

 

To save you enlarging and getting freaked out by the 2 blurry Whoopers in the foreground, here's one I cropped earlier of the 2 Berwicks ..... not pin sharp by any means but hey they were still 150 metres away and that's a damn good manual focus that that range!

















The flooded area nr Bubwith was once again bursting with ducks and waders and here's a pretty decent shot of some Golden Plover that were swirling around over my head at one point.

 

.....  bit dour this next pic but it's the only time I've ever managed to capture Ruff in flight. Never appreciated that wing shape before -almost beeater like ... minus the colour, light and lovely hot weather  you usually see 'em in of course!














Other notable sightings from last week and what was a very cold day's birding yesterday included a flock of about 50 Dunlin, Curlew (heard), 2 Snipe, a couple of Sparrowhawks, 4 Common Buzzards,  a Peregrine Falcon, Tawny Owl (heard), a flock of about 60 Tree Sparrows and plenty of wildfowl with maybe 60 Shelduck and some lovely Pintail that I so must get some pics of before they depart.

I leave you for now with one for the mammal lovers, a cheeky Brown Hare that ran along the bank and posed for me as I was watching a wader flock


Roll on Spring!!