Friday 7 March 2014

Northern ducks fill the skies in the Lower Derwent, early Spring flowers along the Foss and handsome Fieldfares pulling up worms!

Hallelujah, bright skies and normal weather makes a return! This Monday in my part of the world was just the most perfect early Spring-like day, so good that I even submitted my first ever pic to Paul the Weatherman (local tv news station) ... it didn't get selected but for your delectation here it is... some lovely Hazel Catkins hanging in the sun.

Hazel Catkins, River Foss

Should've shot some Daffodill pics! More images from that glorious day later but hey we've been a bit spoilt with nice weather days lately and so I took full advantage of a few spare hours last week to pop into Wheldrake Ings now the floods have receded.

One of Northern England's finest wetland areas, I've posted about this place and the Lower Derwent Valley several times in the past so no need to dwell on it's qualities, and on day of my trip out the place certainly delivered, nothing spectacular in terms of species, just the normal throng of wildfowl, wader and gull mayhem!


Black Tailed Godwits, Wheldrake Ings.


Dodgy pic out of the way first and a rubbish image it is too but the birds aren't ... a couple of Black Tailed Godwits on the last day of Feb potentially and surely scouting out the nesting possibilities.



















Northern Shoveller, Wigeon (front) & Teal (back)


It was as thrilling as ever to see plenty of northern ducks still filling the skies and feeding up on the flood plains of the Derwent. I'm typically slapdash about recording flocks of birds at places like Wheldrake but made an effort with the Wigeon on that day (Feb 28th) and reckoned on about 2700. They were the most numerous I guess, along with Teal (c 2000), Mallard (c1500), Shoveller (c400), Pintail (c250), Tufted Duck (c250), Shelduck (25), Pochard (c40) and Goldeneye just 4 ... bored with the numbers yet? I am a bit too so here's a few pics ...
Mainly Northern Shoveller, plus a Wigeon (bottom left)



Gadwall

Loved the way these 3 Gadwall came out. Not sure I've ever got a better image of these grey cousins of our familiar 'quack quack', the ubiquitous Mallard.

















Male & Female Northern Shoveller

My attempt at a similar close up of Shovellers by way of some heavy post shoot 'cropping' produced a much less sharper image (looks like a digi scope pic!) but I like the way the lens has caught the diametrically opposite wing beats of male and female ...













Male Northern Pintail, Wheldrake Ings



The Pintails, though plentiful, were not flying anywhere near my camera so, as usual, had to make do with a long range effort ... I must get to grips with these beauties before they depart!

Nothing of else of note on the Ings, a cursory glance at the 1000s of gulls coming into roost revealed no white winged species. Precious few waders about apart from Lapwings, 10ish Curlew, the odd Golden Plover and a couple of Oystercatchers.

A smattering of Redwings and Fieldfares occupied the riverside trees and a couple of  calling Willow Tits was a good record.








The light was great for most of the afternoon and even at 4.00pm this Grey Heron flying over was looking splendid!
Grey Heron, Wheldrake Ings

As were these wonderfully turned out Mute Swans
Pair of Mute Swans, Wheldrake Ings

So that was February then, now back to that glorious Monday morning start to the week .....I'm so lucky to be able to take advantage of the relative quiet out in the countryside during the week and it would have been a crime not to be out on such a day so I ditched my planned chores, enjoyed a few moments of smugness as I drove and watched a few late commuters rush into work, and headed off for a stroll down the River Foss nr Strensall Common and ended up finding a previously undiscovered (to me) back way onto the Common itself. Look it was such a lovely Spring day that I'm gonna stop blabbing and let my pictures do the talking.
River Foss at Strensal

Red Dead Nettle, River Foss




Lesser Celandines, River Foss
 

Particularly like the composition on these Celandines ... some flowers just seem to arrange themselves so nicely!!
Alder Tree catkins



Small Tortoiseshell, River Foss


... and with the flowers come the butterflies again, like this rather ragged looking Small Tortoiseshell, one of three I saw along the bank and my first of the year.









Crossing the river and skirting the edge of Strensall Common I came across a big flock of Fieldfares and was totally bewitched to hear one singing in the sunshine from the top of a tree. Took a shed load of pictures some good, a couple really good ...great light and it really showed some of them off! .... here's 6 of the best.
Fieldfares at Strensall

Fieldfares at Strensall

Fieldfares at Strensall
Fieldfares at Strensall

Wow a Fieldfare in flight, exploding from a tree and just about in focus!! All these winter thrushes ... Redwings, Blackbirds and Song Thrushes are gathering in fields now, feeding up before they head back up to Northern Europe. This particular flock of maybe 250 strong were pulling up and devouring worms like their lives depended on it .... which of course is the truth of the matter!
Fieldfares at Strensall
Fieldfares at Strensall


Long Tailed Tit with nesting material




Making my way back the same way there was yet more evidence of the changing seasons .... Long Tailed Tits in the hedgerows, already paired up and gathering nesting material for their intricate ball shaped houses, and Great Spotted Woodpeckers doing their courtship drumming and occasionally resting a while for the purpose of getting their faces on some blog!


Great Spotted Woodpecker, River Foss
Shelduck breezing in
It may not be officially Spring yet but my oh my it's felt like it on 2 or 3 days recently and that day by the sheltered River Foss, feeling the heat on the back of my legs,  I was reminded of warmer climes and far away places .... such a dreamer!!



Tuesday 18 February 2014

In between the wind and the rain, a majestic Sparrowhawk and a hint of early Spring in North Yorks



Well I think we're all a bit sick to death of the wind and the rain that has swept across our country over these past few weeks. Up here in Yorkshire we've escaped the worst of the damage this extreme weather has wreaked in the southwest and I wish them all well with the clean up .... surely some telling solutions will now be arrived at given that this kind of weather looks like becoming the norm.

My only hardship, a few fence panels down and a bit of water through my windows .. oh and the lack of opportunities to get out! Up until the last few days there's been just 2 or 3 days in as many weeks when it hasn't been either raining or blowing a gale!

Aargh, who am I to complain, me who's just taken 6 weeks off in Spain .... wanna guess how many times I've wished I was back there in the past month? Plenty of times! Still, in all the time I was there I never got as good a shot at a Sparrowhawk as this unexpected opportunity along the Pocklington Canal today .....
  
Female Sparrowhawk1_Pocklington Canal

Female Sparrowhawk2_Pocklington Canal
Female Sparrowhawk2_Pocklington Canal



 



Talk about a welcome committee! This was the first bird I saw after I got out of the van .... I'd parked nr Melbourne and there's a steeply raised bridge over the canal there (Church Bridge), and there was this majestic female Spar perched right on top of the bridge wall ... I stood stock still and somehow manoeuvred the camera with amazing agility for a man of my age and got a few good shots off. Best perched Spar pics ever in fact.



























and then she was off..... clocked me at last!
 
The Lower Derwent Valley was thronging as usual with assorted wildfowl ... with hundreds of Wigeon, Mallard, Teal, Gadwall, Pintail & Pochard. At Bubwith I counted at least 95 Whooper Swans (a dozen or so more than last year) and from Ellerton church there were 15 Shelduck standing on the bank - a sure sign of Spring. Also at Ellerton Churchyard I met the local grave digger who told me 2 interesting things (he was obviously a birder too)... he told me that the famous naturalist Peter Scott had once stood and marvelled at the vista of the valley from this very churchyard and that when he did (several decades ago) the Wigeon numbered about 40,000! Less than a quarter of that number now ... sobering thought.

So this was one of those 2 or 3 good weather days I was talking about earlier, a bright and breezy afternoon on Strensall Common, no bird action to speak of but just to be out under a blueish sky was good enough for me!
Strensall Common_Feb2014


Strensall Common_Feb2014
















Male Bullfinch_askham bog


A rare moment of brightness on Askham Bog recently and this was one of nearly a dozen Bullfinches on the reserve.

















Nuthatch_moorlands
Sunday was ok too and lets hope that's it for extreme weather for a while. I working at Moorlands, one of YWTs reserves nr York - famous for its rhododendrons and azalias, it also holds one of the few breeding Nuthatches in the area. These canny, busy little birds inhabit the same kind of places as Woodpeckers and Treecreepers .... tree trunks and branches in other words, and so busy are they that photographing is never easy. Luckily my post at Moorlands is very adjacent to a bird feeding station (which these birds love) and whilst normally avoiding anything that resembles a bag of nuts or a fatball anywhere near my lens, on this occasion I make an exception for one of these pics...
Nuthatch2_moorlands
Nuthatch3_moorlands

When food is plentiful, these birds are in the habit of secreting seeds & nuts away in the crevices on tree bark and I think this is what's going on in a couple of these pics. 



Nuthatch4_moorlands
 
Nuthatch5_moorlands
There was plenty of evidence of birds establishing territorial rights, birdsong and courtship behaviour, none less so than this Robin with an insanely red breast!
Robin_moorlands


Robin2_moorlands























Singing Wren_moorlands



...... and never bet against one of our smallest birds in a full on singing contest!
mmmhh...... think this wee Wren needed a rest after that outburst!
Wren_moorlands

Last weekend was when all the Snowdrops came up around here and what a welcome sight they were too ..... these look so fresh and new, especially with a bit of sun on their tops.
Snowdrops_moorlands

Snowdrops2_moorlands
 

Crocus in local fields


...... and just today I noticed many Crocuses (or is that Crocii!?) in the fields near my house. So delicate and I think quite exotic, we would marvel at their beautiful colours if stumbled upon on a far flung foreign holiday wouldn't we?

Crocus in local fields
Crocus in fields

Enough of the bleak midwinter already ... the days are getting longer and at last there's more than flood water to photograph - not that I've recorded any footage, but with the often over the top sensation seeking news teams out on the case with their BBC issued wellies  - I think we get the picture!!