29th January

It’s been another quiet period but Waxwings have taunted all month, turning up in all the neighbouring villages but somehow missing out Ainderby. I even had great views (in beautiful light) of a flock of 20 at work but typically I didn’t have a camera. So the best I managed were relatively distant shots of a flock  in Romanby in distinctly murky conditions. To compensate here are a couple of cracking shots of local birds taken by Gareth Atkinson…

Best sighting in the parish was a Water Rail seen yesterday in the Magic Garden, only the third village record and all of them seen in this same boggy area…

A Woodcock was also in the garden. I have seen more Woodcock in the last couple of years than the previous twenty. I’m not sure why although the woodland/scrub area of the Magic Garden is distinctly wetter recently so may just represent optimum habitat.

The conditions were surprisingly cold this morning with the Mallard and Teal walking on the ice and two Kingfishers forced off the lake and into the field ditches. Good numbers of geese were around with a nice skein of Pinks last weekend and plenty of Greylags moving over as well as a flock in the bottom fields

At the waterworks there were small numbers of wagtails but how come the Pied sit up and pose beautifully…

but the scarcer Grey’s always seem to lurk about in the shadows. I still haven’t had a good shot of Grey in the parish…  

This morning I saw two Rooks in a really vicious fight, presumably this was a function of the cold weather as aggression does seem to rise when feeding conditions are harder. They were in a field full of other Rooks. The latter birds all took off when I approached but the duelling pair carried on regardless. It only broke up when a Carrion Crow intervened, almost like a ref stepping in to stop a boxing match!