25th February 2024

Pinkfooted Geese used to be a distinctly uncommon bird in the parish with sightings restricted to the odd fortuitous sighting as they passed over in Autumn. Now they are seen with some regularity in winter and on both migrations.

This bird was one of eight associating with the parish Greylag flocks…

And this morning there was a fine skein of 175 calling high over the village…

Otherwise it has been a quiet week although I have added a few more species to my year list with the first Corn Bunting singing by the river, small numbers of Golden Plover near Morton Bridge and a lovely Barn Owl along Greenhills Lane…

This should have been a great shot as it was flying right at me but by the time I had fiddled with settings it had spotted me and this is all I got!

Finally, a small cover crop down Potter Lane has been good for finches and buntings this winter and the Linnet flock here yesterday had grown to more than 300 birds (but difficult to count in the fog!)

Suffolk & Early Butterflies

We have just come back from a week in Suffolk, staying again in Eastbridge. Normally we would have taken a daily walk down to the sea at Minsmere but the intense rain of the previous weeks meant this path was completely flooded (above welly level!) as were a number of the roads. In contrast we had a lovely week of (mainly) bright skies and sun.

No intense birding this week but Suffolk is the kind of place you can’t help bumping into wildlife…

  Dabbling duck on North Warren

Marsh Harrier

Muntjac

Snow Buntings

   Tremella (?) Fungus

White-fronted Geese

But pick of the sightings for me were at least four different adders…

And two singing Woodlarks…

Despite forty odd years of birding, and a number of sightings of the species, this was the first time I had actually heard their (beautiful) song.

Back home today and a quick walk out was quiet for birds but I did see both Small Tortoiseshell and Peacock on the wing in Morton-on-Swale. Easily the earliest village record for both species.

28th January 2024

Pick of the birds this week was a cracking male Merlin watched chasing a Skylark near the river. The lark was constantly singing whilst being hunted which I think is the same principle as antelope ‘pronking’ to show predators it is too fit to be worth chasing. It seemed to work as it escaped unharmed. 

Floodwater dominated again this week and turned up a few birds this included Oystercatcher…

We didn’t used to get the first until late February but they are recorded annually in January now. Also on the floods were 34 Canada Geese, three Gadwall (far from an annual visitor), a pair of Tufted Duck and 42 Teal. There was also a good count of 57 Common Gulls, again this is unusually early as they don’t normally appear before early March.

This morning a skein of 21 Pinkfeet flew north over the village…

A flock of 45 Lapwing over Langlands yesterday included a very small wader but frustratingly brief views meant I couldn’t identify it.

I also had this unidentified (presumably juvenile) duck species on the floods yesterday.

It’s actually very rare these days that you walk along the strandline of receded floods without seeing a plastic duck, where the hell do they come from?!

Other sightings of note included a group of 12 Siskin in the trees near Morton bridge and a flock of 120 Linnet in a cover crop along Potter Lane

Villagers have also reported at least three different Barn Owls in Ainderby over the last week.

On the mammal front I had brief views of Otter in the Swale yesterday, eight Roe Deer on Langlands today and at least six Hares doing what comes naturally!!

Finally, I have set up a little WhatsApp group in the parish to report wildlife sightings, WIG-WAMS (Wildlife Information Group – Warlaby, Ainderby, Morton and Scruton). Just let me know if you would like to be added in.

Waxwings

It has been very quiet in the village this week other than Grey Wagtail on the waterworks and a small influx of Goldcrests today (presumably ahead of the imminent cold snap). 

More tempting has been a nice flock of Waxwings ten minutes down the road...

As usual they performed very well for their audience (although a visit by a Sparrowhawk earlier meant they were slightly jumpy whenever a bird flew over). 

7th January 2024

It took me until October to see my first Nuthatch in 2023 but they were much more obliging this year with daily visits by at least two birds to our bird-table…

Even better was my first garden Marsh Tit record for more than twenty years.

With sightings elsewhere in the parish, and friends reporting similar visits to bird-tables, perhaps there is a local upturn in fortunes?  

Elsewhere extensive floodwater was still around but didn’t attract the numbers of birds compared to the Christmas period. Nonetheless it was good to tick off Shelduck, Teal and Wigeon for the year…

Other records of note included a skein of 44 Pinkfeet over the village, a roost of 200 Fieldfare on Langlands and two Green Sandpipers on the river.

So My first week of 2024 has turned up 51 species (compared to 101 seen in the whole of 2024).  

It's Been a While...

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.

Shetland 2023

We have just come back from two weeks in Shetland, this is our sixth or seventh visit since our honeymoon there 35 years ago! A fabulous trip as ever. We stayed again in The Taing at Reawick with the sea literally at the bottom of the garden…

So the garden list was quite impressive…

plus regular sightings of Black Guillemot, Merlin, Arctic Skua etc.

We also had a fantastic trip out to see the gannetry at Noss...

with spectacularly close birds diving within inches of the boat

There is always a sense of anticipation here as birds can turn up anywhere, so I had Greenish Warbler in a cattle feeder…

Barred Warbler on an old tyre dump…

And Wood Warbler on a garden fence…

But the rarest bird was the long-staying Hudsonian Godwit. It was very poor light the day I saw it so not great pictures but it was rather nostalgic as this species was the first real rarity I ever saw (more than 40 years ago!)…

Some nice plants too with Bog and Frog Orchid, roadside Field Gentians, Oysterplant but the star being Edmonston’s Chickweed…

We were very late for this species but managed to find a single plant in bloom, by definition this would be the only one in flower on the planet as its world distribution is restricted to the tiny Keen of Hamar reserve on Unst.

Mammals too with good views of Otter and Mountain Hare. The one disappointment was cetaceans, it has been a really poor summer for them in Shetland, nevertheless we had views of Risso’s dolphin and Harbour Porpoise and some of the family saw a pod of Orca on the ferry back to Aberdeen (it didn’t include me as I had just gone to have my tea in the restaurant!)

Another memorable experience was seeing the Mareel, this word comes from the old Norse for ‘fiery sea’ and is a marine phosphorescence. Swimming (or in my case paddling!) in the nighttime sea was like stirring up a miniature firework display, magical!

6th August 2023

I managed to add three new species to my parish year list in July, Tawny Owl, Hobby (flying over the Bottom Fields in Ainderby) and Greenshank. The latter bird was only picked up as I photographed a group of six Little Egrets and spotted the ‘shank swimming across the river in the corner of the picture.

Today I walked with Sam along the river, given the recent rains it was, unsurprisingly, quiet with no mud edge to attract waders. We did count at least six Little Egrets along the way, though, and then on Big Bend I spotted a couple of young Yellow Wagtail. Another two flew up on to the fence line and then I spotted another on the gate…

As I walked closer to get a better shot a group came up out of the stubble and we counted a remarkable 21 birds, by some way the best ever count in the parish. I assume these were migrants rather than local but but they were mainly young birds which was encouraging.

Otherwise, it was insects providing most of the interest. My first Migrant Hawker of the year was down Warlaby Lane…

And I had two Purple Hairstreaks on Vicarage Lane, the first time I have ever seen them away from their stronghold on Greenhills Lane.

One of the local farmers has planted an area of rough grazing with wildflowers and I did the Big Butterfly Count there the other evening. I had a good count of 44 Large Whites, 10 Small Whites, three Green-veined Whites, Red Admiral, three Speckled Woods and three Silver-Y moths.

The moth highlight was a Hummingbird Hawkmoth in the garden, this might be the first time I have seen one ‘perched’!

I also photographed a leafcutter bee species, Megachile ligniseca …

This was the first record for North-west Yorkshire (VC65) as was the Psychocephala rufipes fly I included in my last post. This is undoubtedly more to do with lack of observers in this very under-watched Vice-county than actual rarity but it’s still nice to add something to the record books…