A lovely day at Potteric Carr

I started a new job with the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust recently as a Wildlife Support Officer and although it's only part time, what with training days and getting up to speed with how things work, there's not been much time for posting material on here. In addition I've started shooting 'RAW' images which has meant much more post image processing than I've ever been used to so more time on the old laptop .... hehe sounds like I'm making excuses for not posting doesn't it?! Well having come so far with the blog I do start to twitch a bit if I go over a week or so without posting something .. interesting the effect these things can have on your life.

Anyway, ahead of my first day with the YWT my mate Mark invited me over to South Yorks to visit one of the Trust's flagship reserves, Potteric Carr. It was a beautifully crisp and sunny day and although I'm not happy with the way some of the pics turned out, both pre and post processing, here's a few reasonable shots - feedback welcome!

Male Tufted Duck

Singing Robin

Drake Mallard

Lapwings

....... and here's a bird you don't see in the wild unless you're down under in Australia but unlike many 'escapee's' from bird collections, Black Swans are uniquely pleasing and always worth a snap!





Black Swan.... elegant or what!





Common but so photogenic, I almost forgot to include these super Goldfinches feeding on seed heads, the name of which escapes me!

 

York area Bird Race

Ok now here's a thing that probably only birdwatchers do ... count the number of bird species in a give area on a given day and turn it into a competition! In the York recording area (appx 15 square miles around the city) its held on Jan 6th and called the Michale Clegg Memorial bird race - in memory of a notable York ornithologist.

 

More or less true to form I'd forgotten it was on but I was out and about and just tallied my list at 64, with no real surprises - Snipe, Whooper Swan, Siskin, Willow Tit and Pintail being the highlights. Next year maybe, if I'm around.

 

A team of local birders led by Tim Jones won this year's competition with a total of 98 species, breaking the record for the area by some margin - here's his brief report posted on the York Ornithological Forum

 

Well done lads!!

 

Full days birding today in the area amassing a grand total of 98, the route and highlights being;

• a Grey Wagtail at Ouse Bridge in town
• Buttercrambe with highlights being Green Woodpecker, Crossbill, Woodcock, Jay, Nuthatch
• Castle Howard saw Scaup, Shoveler and Goldeneye
• Strensall to get Stonechat with the big bonus of the day being an adult female Hen Harrier that hunted over the northern area of the common in the process flushing several Snipe
• Rufforth Airfield getting 1w and 2w Lesser black-backed Gulls
• Askham Bog getting Willow Tit
• Driving over the A64 managed to see c10 Goosander on Middlethorpe Ings
• Heslington East came up trumps again with a bonus Green Sandpiper, Kingfisher and Jack Snipe
• Tillmire Area with a single Mealy Redpoll in with a large flock of Lessers, Little Owl, Grey Partidge
• Thorganby got Shelduck, Whooper and a sad lack of the previously reported Waxwings
• North Duffield area got Corn Bunting (to equal previous record of 90) then Golden Plover (to beat the record!) also Peregrine but missed Pink foot and Brambling
• Awesome Aughton saw a Marsh Harrier put up a large mixed wader flock which contained Ruff, Dunlin and Redshank to put us on 96!
• Round the corner to Ellerton with a single Bewick's
• Quick race to Melbourne and managed our final species of the day, Little Grebe

 A real top quality day showing that maybe it is indeed possible to get 100 in a day.

 

To put this in perspective other teams in Yorkshire managed;

 

Scarborough- 92

Barnsley-86 (both of which beat us last year)

Fairburn- 70

 

Just goes to show just how good the York Area is!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like Andalucia?

Cracking site / forum here if, like me, you're partial to a taste of Southern Spain. It's called the Andalucia Bird Society. Click here to view the site

For my money Andalucia is by far the best area of Spain and not just for birding, with its magnificent scenery, year round climate and relative absence of heavy tourism, its a place well worth spending some time exploring .... just as me 'n me old mucker Mark have done dozens of times now and it's never failed to disappoint. Best time to go is anywhere between March and early May and anything can turn up on passage. One of these days I'll get around to properly sorting all my Andalucia records and there are many many highlights but a few stand out ..... Golden Orioles making landfall and flying through the bushes at dawn, my first ever Roller perched on top of a prickly pear by the roadside, a displaying Imperial Eagle at Bonanza, a Rock Sparrow singing right above our tents in the Rhonda Valley and just the sheer number of times we witnessed masses of raptors migrating North over the Straights of Gibralter ...... wetted your appetite?

This Andalucia Bird Society site has certainly given me some new ideas for places previously unvisited and contains a wealth of birding and non birding info on the area, it even has a useful guide to separating Lesser and Common Kestrel (something I've never quite mastered!) .... well worth checking out my friends!

Self indulgent sample of Andalucian birds (all pics from the above site)





Black Shouldered Kite





Purple Heron





Imperial Eagle

 





Spectacled Warbler

Montague's Harrier (female)









Rock Thrush



Great Bustard

 

Mmh .... just seen a flight out to Malaga for £29 return in March ... seriously considering it!!





New Year's Day walk in the Howardian Hills

Happy New Year to everyone and to all you birders out there I hope you're 2013 year list has got off to a good start ..... mine is so abysmally average I'm not even going to let on! Struggled to get out what with one thing and another ... weather mainly, but I did get out on New Year's day and since my favourite haunt, the Derwent Valley, was looking more like the North Sea rather than a nature reserve I decided to spend the day on higher ground in the Howardian Hills. Castle Howard would normally be an obvious venue in this much under-rated and under watched area but, sensing it would be thronging with day trippers, dog walkers and Christmas jumper wearers, plus the fact that access is severely restricted these days, I decided to head for Yearsley and the Oulsten Reservoir - an area I used to tramp around regularly up until a few years ago, and see what was occurring.

I have to say, the first day of 2013 around these parts was lovely .... dry (and that's something!), crisp (nicely cold) and more importantly .... lots of sunlight! I had a reasonable few hours walking around familiar forest paths from yesteryear and to my delight found a new right of way through one of the wooded valleys around here.

Apart from a brief Peregrine Falcon moment I didn't see much to report but at least 7 Common Buzzards in the area was reassuring, there were a few small flocks of Redpolls and Siskins, at least 6 Grey Partridge in amongst dozens of Red Legged, and this is one of the few places in the York area you can see both Marsh and Willow Tits .... and I got em both!

Nice Marsh Tit here hanging around a pheasant feeder

I messed around in Lightroom to make something of this pair of Mute Swans that I rather like and will be forever tagged in my collection as 'Sepia Swans'!

 

This is a view of the Oulsten Reservoir with no birds on it! It's never been thronging with water birds but I can remember small flocks of Mallard, Teal, Tufted Duck and Goldeneye here in years gone by and a dozen Goosanders the last time I was here. I did notice some ominous looking screens around the place with square holes in them that looked better suited to guns than telescopes though and it makes me wonder if the ban on fox hunting has led some of our blood thirsty gents into wild fowling for their weekend entertainment!


In some European countries like Greece and Italy they also shoot small birds (passerines) like this rather handsome Golfinch. Safe here thank goodness, apart from passing Sparowhawks of course! This one was basking in the sun it must have almost forgotten about and looked so full on he was crying out to be snapped.











Rather a shame that I couldn't at least get a 'quicky' of the Peregrine but I hardly had time to get the bins on it and identify as a female before she swooped down below the horizon and into a valley full of soon to be agitated pigeons!

Fared a little better with the Buzzards and although at some range and thus cropped a bit too much I think 'Lightroom' (which you may have guessed I've just acquired and currently playing with!) has done a reasonable job on these 2 pictures.

'Do I Wait' for Christmas

Really disappointed with the UK weather at the moment. I read somewhere that the gulf stream has shifted? Well it needs to shift back! Either way ..... it seems to be either bucketing down or blowing a gale, neither of which is conducive to getting out there with my binocs and camera - bad news and it gets worse for you guys who read this thing because that means I get my guitar out and sing!

oh yes and its CHRISTMAS so do have a good one everybody!

I intend to drink and eat far too much than is good for my body and then purge myself with a Boxing Day tramp somewhere where I can't see any tinsel, turkey, baubles or brandy ..... love some snow though!

Ok here's the music. Its a song by the great Ryan Adams called 'Do I Wait' and I'm planning on including this song when I venture into the open mike scene in York in the New Year so by all means tell me what you think.

You 'slag' lol, only joking .... its Fairburn Ings!

I drove down the AI(M) recently to get my car seen to by my nephew and on passing the turn off for Ferrybridge within 20 minutes of setting off I realised that Fairburn Ings, a notable RSPB reserve, was closer to me than I'd previously thought so a couple of days ago I decided to pay said reserve a visit. 

Now it was a dullish day but rain was forecast for the next 3 or 4 so I thought I'd better make the most of things and since I'd done the vast majority of my Christmas shopping the day before I reckoned I deserved a treat.

Fairburn won't win any awards for being picturesque, situated just a few miles outside of Castleford and in the shadow of Ferrybridge power station, its the remains of an old Yorkshire coalfield. Big old slag heaps, although now now largely covered with vegetation, loom large wherever you look and the various water bodies (the result of subsidence of former coal-mine workings) have a distinctly gritty, industrial feel. The RSPB though have done a smashing job here though and with a breeding Avocets and regular rarities seen here, its one of the top reserves in the North of  England.






How's this for an industrial looking bird hide!

My lens, with a fixed aperture of 5.6, is not a great performer in poor light so just as well that Fairburn is one of those photography friendly reserves with plenty of hides and those screens with holes just big enough to poke a long lens through!

No Avocets this time of year of course but plenty of Goosanders around (I reckoned on about 30) and here's a pleasing shot of 3 males.

Lots of Grey Herons about too, always good to capture ...... they stalk around in the reeds

 









hang around in trees .....

 




















...... and have been known to catch the odd fish!

 Cormorants on the other hand are maybe not the most photogenic of creatures and I know the anglers around here and elsewhere hate them because they take fish by the bucket load. Fair do's I say and just as Peregrine Falcons have I'm sure learnt that the Weekends are great for hunting racing pigeons, maybe Cormorants seek out gangs of rubber clad men with rods & poles! There were about 10 perched high up on overhead power lines surveying the scene when I was there but this one taking a lunch break made for a better picture!

 

Around midday the cloud cover intensified rendering anything but close up shots a bit of a lottery. Shame really because after being a tad frustrated by skittish winter thrushes I was coming into to reasonably tame Redwings and Fielfares. I pulled off a few reasonable shots and given the light these haven't turned out too bad but I think a return visit on a bright day is definitely in the offing! The Redwing came out best I think because although I managed to capture the Fieldfare feeding on berries  there was an unseen twig in my near vision that's definitely taken some detail away from the bird's shoulder area .... (argh, why do we look too closely!)

Fieldfare

Redwing

Around the visitor centre at Fairburn there are as many bird feeders as I've seen anywhere. It costs me a tenner a week to keep my garden stocked with various bird seeds and fruit so it must cost the RSPB a small fortune! Money well spent? Yes definitely ... as well as ensuring small birds survive harsh weather snaps, bird feeding stations provide an instant hit for people young and old, capturing their attention and of course their donations!

Great for the odd photo opportunity too, although from a photogenic point of view, any bird captured actually on a feeding station does tend to look a bit 'naff', so I tend to look for 'landing' shots .... where a bird lands immediately before or after feeding. Here's a few examples from 30 minutes or so at one of the feeding stations at Fairburn with not a fat ball or a peanut sack in sight, why if I hadn't already told you these could have taken in some remote arboreal forest!

Goldfinch

Long Tailed Tit



Tree Sparrow



Reed Bunting

Looking at that last picture reminded me of the many Reed Buntings I saw over wintering France (many more than you get here ..... flocks into the hundreds!). No different race than you get here as far as I'm aware but here's a couple of Frenchies .... better light!! 

 

 

 

Lastly here's a pretty smart looking Black Headed Gull, not anywhere near the feeders but I have them occasionally in my garden picking up the scraps that all the other birds tend to leave ... pizza crusts usually! I have to say that I tend to have a bit of blind spot about gulls generally but having seen many fine pictures of gulls of all descriptions on various blogs recently (most of them better than this one!), I'm determined to give them more of a look. I'm not convinced they make pleasing subjects for the camera but my word there seem to be more rare / unusual gulls being seen these days ..... Caspian Gull? Never heard of them before this year!

Northern swan hunting in the floods of the Derwent Valley

 

A fine day yesterday and a perfect opportunity to procrastinate yet again over my Xmas shopping and pop out for a couple of hours to the Derwent Valley in search of Northern swans. I'd heard there were a few Berwick's Swans in the area, these days the scarcer of the 2 species that arrive in our country from the near Arctic circle.

I decided to head out from the Bubwith bridge end along the narrow strip of river bank still above the flood water simply because it looked so inviting .... almost surreal walking out there with the light  being so good.

With so much flood water about though the wildfowl in the valley are spread far and wide so I knew it would be a stroke of luck to get what I was after, a nice close 'fly past' of Berwick's Swans ..... and as far as that particular species was concerned I was not in luck. In fact this was more of a pleasant walk than a serious birding trip. Wigeon and Teal were the most numerous ducks with maybe 200 or so of each visible and there were 20 or so Pochard about but everything very distant. I did have 6 Redshank nr the bridge plus a flock of about 50 Golden Plover in the sky. A passing Buzzard looked good in the sunlight and the Barn Owl was once again daytime hunting near the Geoffrey Smith hide.

 

There were several small groups of distant swans about but too far off to identify without my scope but I did have one Whooper Swan that slid off the bank about 100 yds away. It moved away fairly sharpish and a bit far away for a decent shot but my first of the Winter and the highlight of my little trip across the floods.