October 2026

Given my absence for a sizeable chunk of this month (see later) it was perhaps surprising that I managed to add three new bird species to the village year list this month. The first was a flyover Brambling, with little woodland in the parish this is a distinctly scarce visitor here and was my first ‘garden’ record for about twenty years!

The second, and perhaps more predictable, was a Barn Owl near the Christmas trees. There have been a number of sightings in the village this year, but this was the first one I have managed to catch up with.

The third was a fine pair of Mandarin on the river today…

Despite a significant increase in Yorkshire records, it remains a rare visitor here (and on the Swale in general) so a very welcome sight.

Whilst I was waiting for these two to drift past me, yet another Great White Egret flew in and landed near the bank. I also had 11 Wigeon on the river itself which is unusual, but it was on a particularly foggy morning so possibly disorientated?

Add three Green Sandpipers, Grey Wagtail, my first Fieldfares of the autumn and nice views of this impressive Otter and it was a good morning’s walk…

Mentioning Fieldfares, both winter thrushes have been really scarce so far this autumn (despite a massive overnight movement of Redwings on the 8^th) but Blackbirds in contrast have been present in very large numbers.

The only other sightings of note in October were up to 100 Curlew feeding in the fields around Morton Bridge and a skein of 124 Pinkfeet which made a fine sight, and sound, over the village on the evening of the 6^th.

As mentioned earlier I have been away for part of October. The first few days we were down in Sussex. Fortuitously, it turned out that Rob, the owner of the AirBnB where we were staying, was a moth-er so I got to see a few moths that are absent, or very scarce, in North Yorkshire including…

Euchromius ocella

The Delicate

Flame Brocade

He had lived in the property for a little over two years and his garden list was already on 769 species! We are still limping towards 500 up here…

The second trip was a Trump-delayed holiday to Jordan with my eldest son. A truly amazing place, our focus was on the astonishing archaeological and historical sites but inevitably I bumped into the odd bird…

Arabian Green Bee-eater

Blackstart 

Mourning Wheatear

September 2026

The highlights in September included two cracking additions to the parish moth list. Unfortunately, neither were in my moth trap…

The first was a superb Striped Hawk-moth that Peter caught.

These are really rare visitors to this part of Yorkshire.

He then did the double with a superb Clifden Nonpareil a fortnight later…

This is a species which has been moving north and does now occasionally breed in the county but most Yorkshire records are migrants and still a real star find up here.

Green with envy but great to be able to see and photograph both of these amazing insects.

Still plenty of butterflies around too including Holly Blues through to the month end which is the latest I have seen them in the village…

On the bird front there were two additions to the parish year list. The first was a lovely male Merlin which shot through low over the garden after circling high with two Kestrels. This was a day of heavy southward movement of Skylarks over the village so I imagine this bird had followed them down off the high ground?

The second addition was this young Stonechat in the Bottom Fields in Ainderby…

Still a very uncommon bird in the village but Yorkshire numbers are on the rise...

On the river I found yet another Great White Egret…

And the same day I had three Green Sandpipers…

And no less than five Grey Wagtails…

Other signs of Autumn too with Paul finding a Wheatear at Ladyfield and the first Pinkfooted Geese over the village on the rather early date of 12th September.

All in all, an interesting month for nature.              

August 2026

Quite a lot of my August was taken up with jury service, a rather grim experience, so getting outside into nature was a welcome relief.

Four new bird species added to the list this month. The highlight was undoubtedly finding four Great White Egrets on the river on the last day of the month. This pretty much doubles the total for the parish!

The others were Nuthatch. They are a recent coloniser with the first breeding as recently as 2010 and usually no more than a single pair (in the grounds of the hall). But with no records last year, and none so far this year, I thought it had disappeared from the village so it was a pleasant surprise to have a bird calling from a tree behind the pub this week.

On the river I picked up both the first Common Sandpiper of the year and, distinctly rarer in the parish, a young Little Ringed Plover…

Other wader sightings included three Green Sandpipers together on the Swale, a flock of 14 Curlew and 75+ Lapwing feeding in the cropped fields.

This wasn’t the only sign of Autumn with the riverside willows alive with Chiffchaff calls today as well as the first Teal and Grey Wagtails back on the river.

Peter had two Spotted Flycatchers in his orchard, the first sightings of the year. A late Swift was feeding with a large flock of hirundines on the 30^th and there was a flock of around 120 Linnets down Back Lane. Give their scarcity this year it was also good to find a flock of 26 Tree Sparrows along Potter Lane today.

There have also been large numbers of Greylags in the fields with a peak count of 950 birds on the stubbles near Big Bend.

A good year for butterflies continues. One small patch of thistles near the river was absolutely rammed with butterflies, I had 12 species here including my first Common Blues of the year…

Moths, too, were interesting with between Peter and me a further 12 species added to the parish list in August. These included my first Chevron Grass Moth which turned out to be the first confirmed record for VC65 (North-west Yorkshire)…

I also saw my first Maiden’s Blush…

And Scalloped Hook-tip…

The Magic Garden proved excellent for dragonflies this week with at least 14 Migrant Hawkers present…

Together with Brown Hawker, Southern Hawker, Ruddy and Common Darter and an exceptionally late Broad-bodied Chaser.

July 2026

Pick of the sightings in July was my first Hobby this year, I saw it (unsuccessfully) chasing Sand Martins just downstream of Morton Bridge. It seems to have been a really good year for them down south so a bit surprising they have been particularly scarce up here this year.

The other addition was the first Reed Warbler of the year. It was a former breeding species but now only a scarce visitor. It was down in the Bottom Fields, near to where last month’s Sedge Warbler was singing.

There was also a Great Spotted Woodpecker down here whose parents should have explained not all tall, wooden things are trees…

I've mentioned before that Grey Partridge have made something of a comeback in the village so it was good to see a group of 14 chicks with a (busy!) mother in the Top Fields in Ainderby.

It's not easy to see how small these were from the photo but they were still able to fly once their mother broke cover.

The only other bird records of note were two Yellow Wagtail in a potato crop near Langlands and the first sign of return wader passage with four Curlews and 75 Lapwing near the river.

Fantastic numbers of butterflies again this year, I totalled up over 100 Meadow Browns on a short walk around the Greenhills fields and, more surprisingly, found only our second parish record of Ruddy Darter in one of the barley fields…

It's been, of course, a great year for Painted Ladies with lots of very fresh looking ones this month…

Peter had an interesting miniature one, only 44mm wingspan (about the size of an Orange Tip!). This seems to be because of heat or nutrition stress in the larvae.

But the most noticeable species was Holly Blue, I have never counted more than two in the village before but totalled up 21 last weekend.

I also had a number of sightings of Wall butterflies after missing the first generation in May….

The other lepidopteral event has been the good numbers of Hummingbird Hawk-moth with many sightings and in one case three together on a buddleia in Warlaby. I photographed this one in Jim & Sue’s garden last week…

In the moth traps, between Peter and I, we added an impressive 25 species to the parish list in July, pushing the total up to 476 species. Will we make 500 before the end of the season?

June 2026

Having breakfast on Sunday, I heard a bit of a commotion and then a fine Red Kite drifted low over the garden being half-heartedly mobbed by the village Rooks. Although kites remain scarce in this area they are well established in North Yorkshire now, so this was a not unexpected, but very welcome, addition to my garden list.

Other new species for the year in June included at least one Cuckoo heard calling by the river on 14th and then it (or other ones) were heard near Warlaby and along Greenhills Lane later in the month.  Depressingly, that’s the best showing for about the last 20 years!

The other addition to the year list was a Sedge Warbler singing in the Bottom Fields for at least the last week of June.

I’m not sure what this bird would be, a failed breeder re-establishing a new territory or an early migrant taking up temporary residence? Either way, it was nice to see a former nesting species back in the village.

Talking of former breeding species. June marked the 80^th anniversary of the Yorkshire Naturalist’s Union excursion to Ainderby. The report from that trip makes interesting, if slightly depressing, reading with a picture of a much more diverse landscape with, in particular, a really interesting flora. It also detailed at least 13 species of birds breeding in the parish then that no longer do so.

Away from birds it’s been a good year for Hummingbird Hawk-moths with two in our garden and at least a half dozen reports elsewhere in the parish.

The moth highlight for me, though, was finding around 25 Chimneysweepers in one of the Bottom Fields…

This field has had no grazing this year but I’m amazed how quickly they have moved in (and from where?) as I have never seen the species in the village before. In fact, the last record was the 1946 YNU visit mentioned above.

It’s good to have a second moth-er in the parish too with Peter now trapping regularly at Warlaby. Between us we have already added 19 species to the Parish list.

Highlights included V-moth, now a rare species in Yorkshire…

And in the same trap my first V-pug…

and perhaps surprisingly my first village White Plume..

Butterfly numbers don’t seem to be quite up to the exceptional levels of last year but Meadow Brown’s, in particular, seem to be having a very good year and there were reasonable numbers of Large Skippers along the How Beck...

The only dragonflies of note were two Broad-bodied Chasers although this Emperor dragonfly exuvia was pretty impressive!

I’ll finish with this cracking Golden-bloomed Longhorn beetle I photographed near the railway, it wouldn’t look out of place in the Amazon!

April 2026

April 2026 was another in a series of unpredictable spring months. Despite the dry and generally sunny conditions, cold winds meant migration was mainly a trickle.

The earliest Chiffchaffs had been seen in March but the first significant arrival was on 4^th with a dozen records of singing birds around the village that day…

Sand Martins were very late this year with the first seen on the 6^th April but it was almost the end of the month before they were present in any numbers.

The first Swallow was reported on 8^th and a House Martin the next day. There was a gap then before the next find, at least three Yellow Wagtails along the river on 12^th…

A Willow Warbler the next day was then followed surprisingly by an early Swift over Swalefields on the 18^th (I still haven’t seen one at the time of writing!)

Finally, a Whitethroat was scratching away on the 21^st. There were no reports of either Lesser Whitethroat or Garden Warbler by month end.

A surprising record early in the month was a flock of 129 Stock Doves, by a very wide margin the highest count for the parish. This is despite the local birds being well into breeding so it’s unclear what the source of these birds is…

It was also good to get my first garden Tree Sparrow for some time…

Away from birds, April saw the emergence of all the expected butterfly species but generally in low numbers so far. The one exception is Holly Blue with a definite upturn in April sightings compared with recent years…

I also found an Alder Leaf Beetle and got quite excited as it was only re-found as a British species in 2004. The latest list of Yorkshire beetles (published in 2020) showed no records for north-west Yorkshire (VC65). In fact, and as stark evidence of the pace of change in the natural world at the moment, it is now apparently widespread in the lowland areas of Yorkshire…

If other records are a bit sparse it’s because I missed a chunk of April as we were on holiday on Dungeness. Despite lovely sunshine each day the winds stayed relentlessly northerly, so migration was slow. It did mean some good sea-watching though, with literally hundreds of Whimbrels passing and my first Pomarine Skua for a couple of years.

Highlight on the land was my first Early Spider Orchids at Samphire Hoe, fantastic little plants…

Also, my first Grizzled Skippers after a long search in the Dungeness trapping area…

And on the way home my first Oxlips in a Cambridgeshire wood…

I’ll finish this month with a lovely backlit Hare in the Bottom Fields a couple of days ago…