18th April

Despite the sunny weather the winds have been distinctly chilly and this probably accounts for the relatively low numbers of summer visitors so far. I have had half a dozen Swallows through the village but all have fed and departed and ‘our’ breeding birds haven’t arrived so far.

What was a nice find was a group of four Yellow Wagtails which dropped onto a remnant puddle of floodwater down Greenhills Lane…

They are one of my favourite summer visitors and I spotted other Yellows near Langlands and on the potato fields to the north of Ainderby.

These fields also attracted rarer visitors in the form of two White Wagtails. These are the continental form of our familiar Pied Wagtail and very smart birds with a pale grey back and clean white flanks and underparts. It’s likely these birds are en-route to Iceland.

These represented the first confirmed sightings for the village

This Skylark was also photographed there, not a rare bird but it’s unusual to get a good view of these birds on the ground…

I mentioned last week about the temporary local wader habitat. Unfortunately as predicted it looks as though  dehydration is going to outstrip migration but I did have one nice find, this Ringed Plover on the pool near Langlands. 

This bird dropped in on Tuesday evening for ten minutes before climbing high and away to the south and it was pure luck that we were in the right place at the right time. It does make you wonder how much must pass through unseen each week…

Other sightings over the last few days included two Wheatear in fields down Greenhills Lane and two Red Kite near Thrintoft both spotted by Jim and Sue. Hazel watched a Kestrel trying to rob a Barn Owl of its prey near Morton bridge and I had a flock of 120 Golden Plover in a field down Potter Lane.  Most were in their striking breeding plumage but unfortunately too distant to get anything other than a blurry record shot…