22nd November

I walked down Potter’s Lane and along the Swale yesterday. The water was high and apart from two Little Egrets and a Sparrowhawk it was very quiet on the river itself. One distant field held a small flock of swans. Hoping for Whoopers it turned out it was a flock of ten Mutes, two adults and eight young birds. Unusual and the biggest count of Mute swans I’ve ever had in the parish.

As I walked closer I flushed a nice covey of twenty Grey Partridges and then spotted a black and white bird in the field. My over optimistic brain starting thinking of Avocet but it was, of course, a Shelduck, a quick sweep found a further four birds grazing in the stubble field. Again very unusual as I can’t recall a previous Shelduck sighting this late.

I had to walk around a ploughed field to get closer to the swans and in there was a huge flock of Starling, I would conservatively estimate 6000 birds in a restless blanket of feeding birds. Finally I got a little nearer to the swans and did a quick recount, there were now 12 and the reason was two cracking adult Whooper Swans had joined the flock…

Shortly after this some horse riders inadvertently flushed the birds but what were presumably the same two Whoopers were later seen briefly by Chris on the little flood pool between Ainderby and Thrintoft.

This morning I walked down to see if they had returned to the fields by the river. A covey of 12 Grey Partridge on Langlands continued a good set of records this year. The birds were back but this time there were thirteen, and no Whoopers.

Three more juvenile Mutes had joined the flock. I have never seen more than two or three swans on this stretch of the river so I’ve no idea how these birds find each other.