Festive season catch up - Lower Derwent Valley, Far Ings, Silton Forest and over wintering Blackcaps

To be fair, the baggins has had a lot on his plate recently and is hereby excused for not posting a single thing on here since last summer😜😜.

Seriously though, and not that this bothers me unduly, 'tis another consequence of  'getting on a bit', that inability to juggle quite so many balls in the air at the same time without falling down legs akimbo! Whatever, 😀 Mental health re frame required for reaching the age of 60 is under construction and work is progressing on schedule!

Enough of that rubbish. Here's a few of my wildlife highlights over the festive season.

Me n Mikey, Bubwith Ings, 10/01/20 (pic R. Marrs)

First off and fresh in the mind, a great day out around the LDV (Lower Derwent Valley) with good mates Mikey, Rob n Mark ...

A bright, crisp and sunny day, the kind we haven't had enough off this winter so far, and a joy to be out and about the floodplains.

Me n Mark, East Cottingwith, 10/01/20 (pic R. Marrs)

Aughton church from North Duffield, 10/01/20

Bubwith Ings, 10/01/20

Wigeon, East Cottingwith, 10/01/20

 Lots of birds around with 1000s of Wigeon, Mallard and Teal in the air along with smaller numbers of Pintail, Gadwall, Shoveler and a few Goosanders. At one point mid afternoon we reckoned on appx 7000 ducks flew over East Cottingwith into Wheldrake Ings

Wigeon, Bubwith Ings, 10/01/20

Ruff, in with Lapwing flocks, East Cottingwith, 10/01/20

Nowhere near the huge numbers of Lapwing that there used to be but comfortably 2000+ and in amongst these flocks just 2 Golden Plover (disappointing) but also 4 Ruff that I took to be Golden Plovers at the time till I zoomed in on the pic .. easy mistake to make!
















2 Marsh Harriers patrolling the reeds over by Aughton provided us with constant entertainment as we sat in the hide at North Duffield, as did a single Water Rail creeping around the scrape there, and later on at Melbourne / Thornton Ings an even better treat - a female Merlin speeding over Church bridge and heading south looked to be joined by another. Uncommon birds in the York area so a good record. Just before dusk there appx 30 Corn Buntings flew over towards their usual roosting spot nr Thornton lock.

Marsh Harrier over Aughton, 10/01/20

Silton Forest, 09/01/20

Out on my own the day before I went up to Silton Forest, a forestry commission england site near Northallerton and on the western fringe of the north yorks moors. I was after some location shots for the new website and couldn't have picked a murkier day, but got what I went for in the end, and a pleasant walk in a pleasant forest to boot.

Not a great deal spotted - Nuthatch, Treecreeper, Jay, GS Woodpecker, Willow Tit and a small flock of Siskins.

Silton Forest, 09/01/20

Closer to home, my mother's house to be exact and out the back on the pond there have been up to 17 Goosanders throughout the winter so far, plus a Kingfisher, Great Crested Grebe and in the gardens backing on to the pond Redwings, a Fieldfare, Bullfinches and best of all at least 3 different over wintering Blackcaps - 2 males together a few weeks back and a few days later a male and female together. Great garden record, even managed to spot where one of them goes into roost - a neighbours acacia tree!

 All feeding on the last few Rowan berries and the fat balls of course!

Male Blackcap, York, 14/12/19

Redwing, York, 14/12/19

Goosander (female), York,

Bullfinch (male) 11/12/19

This past year has been like no other for me, much change and lots of ups and downs, the first year for decades that I haven't traveled abroad and the year I decided to give up living on a caravan site. All coming together now, thank god, and planning to be away again to mainland Europe in the spring after a short trip up to Scotland next month. In the meantime here's a few more selected pics from Dec/ Jan.

Goldfinch drinking, Askham Bog, 01/12/19

Pintail, Wheldrake Ings, 05/12/19

Stonechat, Pocklington Canal, 05/12/19,

Whooper Swans, Great Lake, Castle Howard, 09/12/19

Far Ings & Humber Bridge, 13/12/19

Far Ings & Humber Bridge, 13/12/19

Sparrowhawk, Far Ings, 13/12/19

Redwing, York, 14/12/19

Blackcap at roosting site, York, 31/12/19

Towards Wheldrake Ings from the Pocklington Canal, 31/12/19

 Happy 2020!😃😃😃

Yorkshire grasslands & meadows, butterflies & wild flowers.

Well more than halfway through what has been a personally testing year, a year like no other to be honest but not something I'm not going to dwell upon here, its just not very interesting and anyway I'm well on the road back to my old self with every intention of getting back on the saddle and planning another foreign road trip later in the year.😃😃

Nature's tale meanwhile continues to unravel and since July is a relatively quiet time of the year for birding I've been spending a fair amount of time seeking out some Yorkshire meadows to wander about in - a great way to while away the hours and plot my road to recovery!

Fordon chalk bank, a SSSI site on the northern fringes of the Yorkshire wolds is more grassland than meadow but the site has some of the most impressive strips of 'created' meadow running alongside farmed crop fields I've seen. Much wider than the 10m or so I regularly see in my part of the wolds and packed full of wild flowers and butterflies.

Marbled White on Clover, Fordon, 16/07/19

Small Skipper, Fordon, 16/07/19

Ringlet, Fordon, 16/07/19

Fordon bank grasslands

I hung around this peaceful valley all afternoon and was rewarded with some pretty decent 'golden hour' shots as the shadows lengthened and the sun dipped lower in the sky.

Grassland at Fordon, 16/07/19

Small Heath, Fordon, 16/07/19

Lady's Bedstraw, Fordon, 16/07/19

Clustered Bellflower, Fordon, 16/07/19

Fordon bank grasslands

Dark Green Fritillary on Betony, Haugh & Gundale Slacks, 12/07/19

Ablaze with floral colour and teeming with butterflies, the curiously named Haugh and Gundale Slacks (another SSSI site) near Pickering was another meadow / grassland visited in July, this time with good mate Rob. Easily the largest number of Dark Green Fritillaries I've ever seen in Yorkshire(50+), Marbled Whites and several other butterfly species.

Dark Green Fritillary on Betony, Haugh & Gundale Slacks, 12/07/19

Dark Green Fritillary on Scabious, Haugh & Gundale Slacks, 12/07/19

Marbled White on Scabious, Haugh & Gundale Slacks, 12/07/19

Dropwort, Haugh & Gundale Slacks, 12/07/19

St John's Wort, Haugh & Gundale Slacks, 12/07/19

Further north and west but still in Yorkshire, a couple of days in the Dales was an opportunity to visit a very different type of meadow. Scattered within the North Peninnes and Yorkshire Dales area there are many fine examples of traditionally farmed meadows termed Northern Hay Meadows. Lying predominantly on upland slopes these species rich grasslands are one of the scarcest habitats in the UK. We chose to visit a series of these delightful meadows that lie adjacent to the upper reaches of the River Wharfe nr Yockenthwaite in Langstrothdale - rough camped there too😃⛺

Hay meadow, Yockenthwaite, 24/07/19

Betony flowers, Yockenthwaite, 24/07/19

Hay meadows are steeped in tradition, entirely man made they are grazed in the autumn and winter months then 'shut off' until late July/ August when they are cut to make hay. The richest hay meadows can contain 30 plant species per sq metre.

More info - Northern Hay Meadows

More Info - Yockenthwaite meadows

Strolling beside the hay meadows

River Wharfe

The source of the River Wharfe is formed by the joining of the Oughtershaw Beck and Green Field Beck, very close to here and where we rough camped. The river is 65 miles long, making it the 21st longest river in the UK, and empties into the Rive Ouse near Cawood

Not a great deal of bird action in the Dales, as expected for July, with several sightings of Spotted Flycatchers, a couple of return passage Ringed Plovers on Grimwith Reservoir, 2 Northern Wheatears at the same location and a handful of migrating Sand Martins beating south in the aftermath of a summer storm.

Ringed Plover, Grimwith Reservoir, 24/07/19

Sedge Warbler, Spital Beck, Fangfoss, 02/0719

Apart from seeking out of meadows and grasslands I've been getting back to doing my normal thing - visiting local sites, doing the business for YWT at Askham Bog, keeping my mum on the straight and narrow after dad's death and of course getting back to my caravan and local patch at Fangfoss. Speaking of which I got a new bird for here last month, surprised its taken so long, but a pair of Sedge Warblers taking food into bush alongside the Spital Beck was a most welcome sight!

Common Swift, Pocklington Canal, 02/07/19

And it only seems like yesterday when we were all bemoaning the lateness and paucity of Swifts, Swallows & House Martins this year, and now they're all on their way back it seems, Swifts have already departed from my neck of the woods!

I heard it was a severe weather system over Iberia in early spring that severely affected tens of thousands of returning Swifts and Hirundines. Been a poor breeding season for them all I suspect.



At some point in the last few months as new and different plants bloom week by week, I realised that I'd been making an identification mistake for years! Told more than one visitor to Askham Bog over the years and probably on this blog that this - (Marsh Valerian) is Fine Leaved Water Dropwort, a much scarcer plant.

Marsh Valerian, Pocklington Canal, 02/07/19

 ....silly me, I'd have said it with such comviction too! This year at Askham Bog a proliferation of A water based plant I couldn't quite place appeared along one of the dykes and .... you guessed it, turned out to be Fine Leaved Water Dropwort!

Fine Leaved Water Dropwort, Askham Bog, 14/07/19

Clustered Bellflower, Fordon, 16/07/19

Love the pure and delicate white flowers on that Water Dropwort but its a totally different plant to Marsh Valerian - what an idiot! Talking about delicate here's another shot of one of the Clustered Bellflowers at Fordon and a few more images from round about my locale in July into early August.

Brown Hare, Fangfoss Pk, 21/07/19

Meadowsweet, Pocklington Canal, 02/07/19

Common Cransbill, Fangfoss Pk, 11/07/19

Pocklington Canal (Gardham Lock),

Sedge Warbler, Pocklington Canal, 05/08/19

Been warm wet and muggy in Yorkshire for ages, yet another symptom no doubt of the climate change that surely no sane person can deny is upon us with force. Not gonna dwell on that either (check it out here or even more starkly here should you still need an eye opener) -