12th April

It has been ages since I posted anything (a combination of inertia, work but mainly lack of birds!) but in these strange times connection with nature seems more important than ever. A couple of regular readers have also prodded me into action so I will try and get back to a regular pattern again.

What has been noticeable is the number of people now walking around the village, for example I have quite literally seen more people on Langlands in the last three weeks than in the previous thirty years combined. Perhaps we might see more people taking an interest in the wildlife of the parish in the future?  

In terms of birds it has been pretty quiet but we have seen the first summer migrants over the last few days. The earliest was Chiffchaff with singing birds from 20th March. The first Sand Martins were on the river from 25^th March, a Blackcap was singing behind our house on 7^th April and I heard a Willow Warbler the following day. Jim and Sue had two Swallows over the Garth in Ainderby on 7^th and a bird was hawking over our garden on the 8th but I have not heard of any sightings since.

Migration generally has been poor with, despite sunny weather, the cold winds possibly being the cause. This is evidenced by regular sightings still of Meadow Pipits which are always an indicator of slowed migration. This included a tight little flock of 35+ in one of the meadows on Langlands…

Pick of the birds though was a cracking cock Redstart seen on the evening of the 10^th (a nice birthday present!). This was one of only a handful of sightings in the parish and only the second adult male. Unfortunately this terrible picture in the evening light does not do the bird justice!

My early morning walk yesterday was disappointing with around 30 Sand Martins, ten Chiffchaffs and three Willow Warblers the only summer migrants seen. What was positive though was to see a singing Corn Bunting on the edge of Ainderby itself, this is the first for four or five years. Altogether on my walk I had an encouraging nine singing males of this species which has seen such a dramatic decline in numbers.

Two of these were singing from oil seed rape and it will be interesting to see if they adapt to this crop as Reed Buntings seem to have done…

Last weekend there was an unusual movement of Jays over the parish. I picked up 10 going over Greenhills Lane and Chris Knight had another group of five over Thrintoft at the same time. So it’s interesting to speculate on the total numbers involved.

For once we have some interesting looking areas of wader habitat in the parish, remnants of the winter flooding...

but they are drying fast and it is going to be a tight race between wader migration getting in full swing and these sites retaining water. The pickings have been slim so far with a single Redshank on the Langlands pool…

And a Green Sandpiper on the pool between Ainderby and Thrintoft. This latter site also attracted thirty Teal, Shelduck, a pair of Goosander and (a real Ainderby rarity!) a pair of Coot.  

One of the pleasures of my daily lockdown stroll has been the regular sightings of Hares with up to fourteen seen on a single walk.

These have included one Rumble in the Jungle boxing match where they were really going at it,whilst this pair today were aggressively chasing off Carrion Crows (by charging at them with their ears bent forward) so I suspect they have some leverets secreted somewhere in the field…