Apologies first for such a huge gap since my last post. Some building work which kept me off the computer and then a new work role which has kept me very busy are my ‘excuses’ but my new year resolution is to do better!
The undoubted highlight since I last wrote has been the
appearance of a spectacular display of nacreous clouds….
These are formed from the sun reflecting off ice crystals
high in the atmosphere and are only formed at temperatures below -78 degrees.
Unsurprisingly they are mainly restricted to the polar regions so this was a
rare, and beautiful, sight. A friend’s wife, who is a meteorologist, has only
seen these once before so it does feel a bit of a once in a lifetime view!
The more dominant theme of recent weeks though has been rain,
with the consequent emergence of floods around the village…
They have drained between storms surprisingly quickly, given
how saturated the ground is, but the very heavy rain before Christmas did pull
in some birds. Pick of these was a Great White Egret on the Wiske floods near
Warlaby (photographed from his garden by my friend Peter).
Despite hanging around for three days I never managed to catch
up with it.
The floods also attracted their diminutive cousin with up to
four Little Egrets on the Ainderby floods and three at Warlaby.
At one time I saw a bird pattering like a Herring Gull so I assume they were after earthworms?
Good numbers of wildfowl were attracted on to the floodwater
at Langlands with up to 440 Greylags, including this leucistic bird…
Pinkfeet skeins have been seen flying over on a number of
occasions this autumn and winter but five on the floodwater yesterday evening
was more unusual…
Teal numbers peaked at 220, a record number for the parish…
And up to 58 Wigeon was also one of the best ever counts for
the village
Other records on the floods included ten Whooper Swans
(first seen over our garden and later on the floods), Shelduck, Goldeneye, up to
70 Curlew, 125 Lapwing, 60 Golden Plover and two Woodcock.
Pick of the other sightings was a Marsh Tit near the river
at Morton. They have sadly declined dramatically in the UK and this was the
first in the parish for over a decade.
