5th February

This Pinkfoot was with the small Greylag flock in the Bottom Fields on Friday but had gone by the next day. Although Pinks are occasionally seen flying over the parish this is actually the first I’ve ever seen on the ground in the village…

Along the river I had my first Oystercatcher of the year…

These are usually the earliest harbinger of spring in the parish although there were other reminders of the coming season with the first Skylarks singing today and half a dozen woodpeckers drumming.

I also spent a good half hour trying to catch up with a bunting I flushed from the river bank. It was creeping  through the short turf here and I had thoughts of Lapland (or rarer!) but it was just this female Reed…

Along Greenhills Lane this morning I added a pair of Grey Partridge and a small flock of Linnet to my year list. A group of 40+ Tree Sparrows were in the ‘Avenue’ and I would have had a rather nice portrait of one of them if it hadn’t turned its head at the last minute!

In the medievally muddy sheep fields near the ruined barn…

there were small numbers of Greylags…

…along with 100 Black-headed Gulls, 30 Lapwing, a couple of dozen Pied Wagtails and a handful of Meadow Pipits and Reed Buntings. Thrush flocks also seem to be building up again with around 150 Fieldfare and 50 odd Redwings…

Other sightings over the last week included Barn Owl and two Little Owls on the Thrintoft road. I was really pleased to see the Barn Owl as they have been disturbingly scarce this winter after the bumper crop last year.

29th January

It’s been another quiet period but Waxwings have taunted all month, turning up in all the neighbouring villages but somehow missing out Ainderby. I even had great views (in beautiful light) of a flock of 20 at work but typically I didn’t have a camera. So the best I managed were relatively distant shots of a flock  in Romanby in distinctly murky conditions. To compensate here are a couple of cracking shots of local birds taken by Gareth Atkinson…

Best sighting in the parish was a Water Rail seen yesterday in the Magic Garden, only the third village record and all of them seen in this same boggy area…

A Woodcock was also in the garden. I have seen more Woodcock in the last couple of years than the previous twenty. I’m not sure why although the woodland/scrub area of the Magic Garden is distinctly wetter recently so may just represent optimum habitat.

The conditions were surprisingly cold this morning with the Mallard and Teal walking on the ice and two Kingfishers forced off the lake and into the field ditches. Good numbers of geese were around with a nice skein of Pinks last weekend and plenty of Greylags moving over as well as a flock in the bottom fields

At the waterworks there were small numbers of wagtails but how come the Pied sit up and pose beautifully…

but the scarcer Grey’s always seem to lurk about in the shadows. I still haven’t had a good shot of Grey in the parish…  

This morning I saw two Rooks in a really vicious fight, presumably this was a function of the cold weather as aggression does seem to rise when feeding conditions are harder. They were in a field full of other Rooks. The latter birds all took off when I approached but the duelling pair carried on regardless. It only broke up when a Carrion Crow intervened, almost like a ref stepping in to stop a boxing match!   

2nd January

Happy New Year!

It was my first proper chance to get out today on a glorious winter’s morning…

Pick of the birds was undoubtedly a nice skein of 60 Pinkfooted Geese flying west along the river

Another group of Pinks flew over the house this evening.

The river itself was quiet with this Little Grebe the only bird other than the usual Moorhens and Mallard...

In the Magic Garden there were two Kingfishers, small numbers of Reed Buntings…

And it reaffirmed its place as the best site for Bullfinches in the parish..

In all today I recorded 51 species , not a bad start to the year. Talking of which I finished last year on 112 species, exactly the same as 2015. 

28th December

I haven’t posted for a little while as it’s been so quiet. I went down the river this morning hoping the cold might have pushed birds off any frozen water. A group of 11 Cormorants flew over along with a single Goosander and a small group of Common Gulls was by the railway bridge…

This Grey Heron caught the early sun...

But after this the mist closed back in…

A large flock of geese was on the far side of the river but the mist was so thick I couldn’t see anything but vague shapes.

Yesterday there was a group of around 40 Curlew feeding here…

I flushed a small group of Teal…

a flock of 13 Wigeon was on a  riverside flood pool, 150 Golden Plover on the fields south of the bridge and a single Oystercatcher was still present…

And finally, in the misty distance today, a reminder that spring isn’t that far away…

4th December

Snipe are one of my favourite birds, a typical species of my younger days in Worcestershire in the damp meadows along the Avon. The Bottom Fields in Ainderby have similar habitat and yesterday there were around 45 Snipe there including this tight flock of 30 odd birds…

Today there were about half that number but I spotted a couple (very) distantly on the ground…

Numbers of wintering Snipe do seem to be on the increase in the parish despite a decline in the national numbers. I assume this is a feature of better habitat, so surely it can’t be long until I find my first village Jack Snipe…

A few Wigeon were also in the Bottom Fields but I didn’t see them until they were  flushed off by dog walkers. The third bird down looks different but may just be the angle?

Nearby This Grey Heron was stalking something in the ploughed field.

Herons will eat virtually anything, I once saw one swallow a Coot and I have also seen them reaching into rabbit burrows but I assume this one was after earthworms.  

I’ll finish with a couple of shots of Fieldfare, the first one showing clearly why the local dialect name for them was Blueback…

whilst this smart bird was perched in the garden of the Old Vicarage…

27th November

A quick pre-dark walk upstream from Morton bridge on Friday turned up this Oystercatcher. The first I’ve seen since the summer and probably the latest I’ve ever had one in the parish…

I also saw my first Goosander since late spring…

And on the interesting looking flood pool here…

There were a handful of Teal and half a dozen Snipe. Two Little Egret also flew over.

The Bottom Fields in Ainderby looked very promising for birds this morning too.

They would have been covered in gulls, Curlews and corvids if it hadn’t been for this…

Which, despite appearances, is not a speck on the camera lens but my second Peregrine of the year. The falcon sent everything up before flying up and over the village.

One bird that was on here was this cock Lapwing which looks to be in virtual full summer plumage, very strange at this time of year.... 

It appeared to be paired up and even seemed to have a half-hearted attempt at display flight.

The other highlights were a Fox which jumped out of the fen area almost at my feet and two Woodcock (flushed from the bog area and the willow patch). The only times I have seen Woodcock before have been on passage or in very hard weather. 

20th November

It has been very quiet recently hence the gap in posts. Thrushes have continued to flood in with a conservative estimate of 600 Redwings in the Magic Garden early last week. There is also a regular thrush roost here. The Redwings tend to use the trees on the island or the young oaks but the Fieldfares drop in to the tops of the more mature trees.

  

Cormorants used to be uncommon visitors to the village but are now seen very regularly. The bare Ash tree in the Magic Garden seems to be the perch site of choice.

This second bird looks to be of the continental race sinensis from the shape of the orange gular patch.

  

Another bird which has become much commoner in recent years is the Jay. It was the big autumn influx from the continent in 2012 which marked the real change with regular sightings since then (although they seem to disappear in the summer). The Magic Garden is the best site but birds are often seen on Langlands Farm too. I’ve included this poor picture as this is literally the only shot of this ultra-wary bird I have ever taken in the parish.

The only other birds of note were three Snipe in the bottom fields, a pair of Teal in the Magic Garden and a Grey Wagtail amongst the leaf litter on the village green (can you spot it?)

In terms of the weather there seems to be a real contrast at the moment. Both these pictures were taken within a few minutes of each other, snow on the Hambletons…

And this almost summery view in the Magic Garden...

And as if to emphasise the delayed autumn, driving to the pictures last night (‘Arrival’ – very good!) we saw quite a few moths and a bat out hunting.

I’ll finish with this striking sky-fire picture photographed last night (surely a warning from the gods after Trump’s victory!)

27th October

A walk along the river this morning in very gloomy conditions. Undoubted highlight was my first really good view of an English Otter. I almost missed it too, I heard a splash and assumed a fish jumping but fortunately lifted my bins and saw the Otter half out of the water. It then swam across the river and I caught up with it again when trying to photograph a Little Egret.

It was a big beast, presumably a dog otter, and rolled and tumbled in the water until it sensed me and dived deep and away.

Two Little Egrets were also on the river…

And my first Mute Swans since the spring...

The hawthorns in Migrant Alley were alive with scores of Redwings together with a handful of Goldcrests and a murmuration of around 3000 Starlings was seen swirling over Morton Flatts.

Other birds seen included Jay, Kingfisher, Golden Plover, three Buzzards, around 50 Greylags plus a Green Sandpiper in Ainderby.

16th October

The last mothing  of the season last night. The weather was much colder than forecast and resulted in only 27 moths being caught of just eight species. But this did include a new one for the parish, Feathered Thorn…

...and 11 examples of ‘November’ moths, there was some variation in these but they are very hard to distinguish the three very similar species and John has taken them for further analysis

As we emptied the traps this morning there was a large movement of Redwings over, all generally heading South-South-East, along with small numbers of Skylarks. This is in contrast to yesterday when it was almost exclusively Fieldfares, heading high west, presumably straight in from the coast.

Yesterday I flushed my second Woodcock of the year from the Magic Garden, a Buzzard has taken up almost permanent residence there…

And there was still the odd Chiffchaff hanging on (or passing through) the Garden. More remarkably Chris Knight spotted an exceptionally late Swift over the village on Wednesday. Given all the birds arriving from the east over the last few days it’s interesting to speculate where this bird originated from…