31st May

Bird highlight this week was Reed Warbler singing in the magic garden but unfortunately there was no chance of photographing it as it stayed hidden deep in the small reedbed here. This is the third singing bird in the last four years and there must surely be a chance of breeding soon. The last definite record of nesting in the village was back in the 1940s so it’s been a long wait…

The other more personal highlight was to have House Martins starting to nest build on our house, this is the first time in all the years we have lived here, and this despite it seeming to be a rather poor year for the species

Otherwise it was insects which dominated the sightings. Yesterday Chris and I found a reasonably impressive total of 13 species of butterfly along a couple of hundred yards of the railway. None of them were rare but included the year’s first records of Common Blue and Large Skipper…

Up to half a dozen Wall butterflies…

And my second Small Copper after seeing one down Greenhills Lane on Tuesday…

I also had this Small Tortoiseshell…

But the more significant part of this is the flower it is on, a Cornflower. These were once a common arable weed but they are effectively now extinct in north-west Yorkshire. The likelihood is this is an ‘escape’ from a garden but there is just a chance, particularly as this field has alternated between pasture and crops, that this is a remnant genuinely wild flower.

24th May

My only bird record of note was my first Little Owl of the year, heard calling from the footpath which runs alongside the railway. They have become sadly difficult to find recently and I only recorded a single bird last year. I’m not clear what has driven this apparent decline but on Langlands, which held up to three pairs, John thinks the very heavy flooding of a few years ago is the cause because it killed all the earthworms. Certainly when I went down there after the floods the tracks were covered in a sludge of dead worms.   

On the insect front I saw my first Red Admiral and three Brimstone, a good count for this species in the village. I also saw my first damselflies with Azure damselfly in the Magic Garden and a Large Red Damselfly down Greenhills Lane…

The railway running through the parish acts as something of a wildlife corridor and I have seen birds orientating on and following the line (including once a flock of Common Terns). It used to hold Common Lizards, still the only reptile I have seen in the parish, and because it has often been less disturbed has held on to a different mix of plants than much of the rest of the parish.

Obviously you are not allowed on the railway but where the Morton-Thrintoft path crosses the line you can see many of the typical mix of plants with masses of Forget-me-Nots…

And mats of the low growing, yellow-flowered Black Medic. These are backed by White Dead-nettle, (or Adam and Eve in a Bower from the little figures, stamens, lying next to each other under the petal) and the pale green of Crosswort. Amongst this there are patches of Dove-foot Cranesbill,  Prickly Sow-thistle and Herb Robert …

As well as the attractive little Wood Avens…

And where an undisturbed slope remains they have retained  Cowslips and a few violets…

The railway also has Common Liverwort, fascinating plants that are also known as Umbrella Liverwort for obvious reasons…

These ‘umbrella’ ones are female with the male in the form of flattened leaf-like discs.

20th May

A very quiet week for birds, it feels as though migration is over before it has really got started and some species numbers, such as Swallows and both martins, still seem particularly low (although I did have a dozen House Martins feeding and gathering mud from the muck heap down School Lane). The only records of note were both Tracey and Chris having calling Cuckoos this week. Tracey heard hers in the bottom fields at Ainderby and Chris in Thrintoft. The latter bird was still calling today. This shouldn’t really be news but it is a very long time since we had them regularly in the parish.

As I don’t have a picture of these birds then Cuckoo Flower will have to substitute…

Incidentally this is the main food plant of the Orange Tip butterfly and if you look very closely on the flower stems you can sometimes find their tiny bright orange eggs.

My very slow progress on botany continues. As a whole the parish, with its intensive agriculture, has a really poor flora but even here you can find tiny pockets  so over the last few days I have added a handful of (common!) species to the parish list including:

Winter Bittercress…

Bird’s Foot Trefoil...

Common Fumitory…

And Dove’s Foot Cranesbill…

10th May

A much quieter week, migration seems to have slowed but numbers for some species such as Swallows still seem well down. I did see my first Swifts though with a single bird over the village green on the 5th and a dozen birds screaming over the house the next day...

I also finally ticked off my first House Martins with singles in Thrintoft and Morton. The only other birds of note this week were a Peregrine circling very high over the village on the 4^th and my second Sedge Warbler of the year singing vigorously away from thick vegetation in a field ditch on Langlands.

So photos will have to be restricted to common species like Yellowhammer…

And Reed Bunting

The other regular bunting, Corn, seems to be having a relatively good year with a total of 14 birds heard singing over the last couple of weeks. 

In contrast it seems to be a particularly poor year for Lapwings, I have only seen two displaying birds so far. I don’t know if this is a feature of the very dry weather, lack of food, different crop regimes or what but it’s worrying.

In lockdown garden birding what we have had are regular garden visits by corvids. It started with Jackdaws who have learned how to feed on the fat balls. Up to half a dozen have visited, one to hang on the feeder and break up the fat balls and the others picking the pieces up below. A couple of Magpies and the odd Carrion Crow have joined them and even small numbers of Rooks who are normally notoriously wary…

I have also been joining the many lockdown birders sitting in their gardens scanning the skies for birds of prey. Buzzards are regular and I have had Sparrowhawk and Kestrel over but no hoped for Osprey. Mind you cloud watching was quite enjoyable in itself…  

Night sky wasn’t too bad either…

Elsewhere this Shelduck was still zealously guarding his ‘pool’

Someone is going to have to tell him…

Hares again have been almost constant companions including this one doing a reasonable impression of a young Wallaby…

Other mammal watching this week has turned up three Roe Deer, a Stoat and a Fox which popped out of a hedge about three feet in front of me. I don’t know who was more surprised but instead of bolting away it loped along the path watching me over its shoulder as it went and then as soon as there was a slight bend in the path it shot off like a rocket. By the time I had switched my camera on this is all I managed...

I will finish with one word of warning. If you walk into a small piece of woodland following the sounds of what you think are deer just ensure it isn't actually a couple of people undertaking their lockdown exercise in a distinctly non socially-distancing form!

2nd May

I thought I had missed the chance of seeing Wheatear in the parish this year but I picked up a distant bird yesterday evening at the end of Greenhills Lane. However, Wheatears are like buses and down the river this morning…

It’s quite a well-coloured bird with peach underparts and some warm tones in its mantle so is likely to be a far north bird on its way through to Iceland or possibly Greenland. I have also found these northern birds, when spooked, always head higher and this one went straight to the roof of a field barn.

Last night’s Wheatear was joined by six Golden Plover, I think these are the latest records I have ever had in the village. In the gloom of yesterday evening my cheap camera struggled to photograph them but you can get a hint of what handsome birds they are…

Given the date and the very extensive black on its face this bird is likely to be of the northern subspecies ‘albifrons’ and again will be on its way north, probably to Iceland or the Faeroes.

On today’s walk I saw my first Garden Warbler of the year and the excellent spring for Lesser Whitethroats continues with another four singing birds today, almost outnumbering Common Whitethroats. Still no House Martins or Swifts though.

On the river itself it was very quiet other than four Oystercatcher, at least one pair of Yellow Wagtails and two Little Egrets…

I also had a fantastic total of 22 Hares today including ten in a single field, these were still boxing on occasions which I thought was unusual for this late. I photographed this one the other morning, the light wasn’t brilliant hence they aren’t really sharp but they make great shapes…

In recent months I’ve had a growing, but very basic, interest in botany. Unfortunately the parish, being intensively farmed, has a very poor flora. One plant I do see though is Lords and Ladies or the Cuckoo Pint (really pronounced pinnt rather than pynt)  and it seems to have been a really good year for them.

There is normally a single plant in this small spinney but I counted at least 20 this year, they have a vaguely unsettling air about them and it’s not hard to imagine them as fledgling triffids! Incidentally the roots of this plant are what were used to starch Elizabethan ruffs.