28th March 2021

Siskin are surprisingly scarce in the village but about this time each year I nearly always get the odd bird dropping into the garden. This year was no exception…

And as usual it was there for a few minutes and then not seen again. I also added Red-legged Partridge to the year list with a bird flying into the solar farm.

In terms of summer migrants Chiffchaffs have arrived in some numbers with at least 11 singing birds counted this weekend…

And Chris had a single Sand Martin on the river. 

Otherwise it has been exceptionally  quiet although I did have a mouse’s-eye view of this Kestrel…

On the botany front I have added a couple of plants to the parish list. The first was Siberian Bugloss (or Great Forget-me-not) found on a roadside bank.

This is a naturalised garden plant. This might also be the case with the second find, some large drifts of Sweet Violet…

But given the setting I think it is as likely they are genuinely wild plants. Today I found a colony of the white-flowered form of the same species…

I'll finish with the only other flying thing of note, this massive Globemaster doing (very!) low circuits over the village this week...

21st March 2021

There has been a fantastic movement of Whooper Swans through northern England over the last couple of days. Most of it has been to the west of us but I went out yesterday morning hoping to join in and fortunately had a cracking flock of 52 birds over Morton.

The wild calls of Whoopers are definitely one of my favourite sounds of nature. I think this is the largest skein I have seen in the parish.

Further signs of spring as well with two singing Chiffchaffs in Ainderby and another by Morton bridge.

It’s always nice too to photograph your first butterfly of the year…

Little else of note although singing Corn Bunting numbers are slowly rising…

And this dead tree held a nice little colony of Tree Sparrows...

I’ll finish with the least convincing camouflage of the day…

14th March 2021

Chris texted me last week to say there was a Shoveler on the little flood pools between Ainderby and Thrintoft. I was just replying to say how productive those pools were when he rang, four Avocets just dropped in! I grabbed my bins and camera and started to jog (well, fast walk) there. I had barely crossed the village green when the dreaded call came in, they had flown off high north never to be seen again…so personally disappointing but another great addition to the parish list.

At the beginning of last year I jotted down half a dozen species that I thought were possible additions to the bird list (Dusky Warbler was not one of them!!). So we’ve now ticked off Egyptian Goose and Avocet and a Great White Egret was seen literally feet outside of the parish boundary. That leaves White-fronted Goose, Ring Ouzel and Pied Flycatcher still to get….

Otherwise it has been a rather quiet period although the first summer migrants arrived yesterday with a Chiffchaff by the railway and Chris had another by the waterworks. There have been a smattering of them arriving at local sites over the last couple of days so I assume these are spring arrivals rather than wintering birds.

Winter thrush numbers have fallen sharply with Redwings particularly scarce now although a handful joined a mixed thrush and starling flock in Thompson’s fields…

And surprisingly February’s leucistic fieldfare was seen again in the same area (but unfortunately the photos are no better!)

Talking of thrushes there seems to have been a bit of a resurgence in Song Thrush numbers this year after very sharp declines but it remained the scarcest of the five regular thushes in the garden this winter…

New birds for the year included the first singing Corn Bunting along Potter’s Lane and a calling Tawny Owl in the hall grounds.

Finally,  this moth, found on the side of the road, is a Dotted Border

This is actually a new species for the village (although reflecting a lack of moth trapping at this time of the year rather than rarity)   

28th February 2021

Spring has definitely felt just around the corner this weekend with my first butterfly, a Small Tortoiseshell, and early signs of migration with a cracking skein of 113 Pinkfooted Geese flying north…

A skein of 113 were noted flying over just north of York earlier in the morning so I assumed it would be the same birds but the distance and timings would indicate an average speed of 16 mph which is very low for migrating geese so may just be a coincidence.

These birds were high, and noisy, enough that both Chris in Thrintoft and Andy in Scruton also picked them up. Chris also had 20 Whoopers north along the river.

Elsewhere it was the floods in the village fields which were the focus of the best sightings. Pick of these were seven Gadwall on the Bottom Fields in Ainderby on the 25th.

This was The largest flock I have ever seen in the parish. The next day this had risen to ten and on the 27^th, despite the floods receding significantly, there were 15.

Considering I have only seen Gadwall on half a dozen occasions in all the years I have lived here it does imply birds are regularly passing over but not usually landing.  

Other sightings since my last post include a Peregrine terrifying the Lapwings on Langlands, 130 Curlew and 120 Golden Plover on the floods, my first Redpoll and Coot for the year and this rather striking leucistic Fieldfare. A very poor picture but a definite heart stopper when you’re scanning through the thrush flocks!!

Parish year list to end of Feb: 75 species

The Big One...

One of the few upsides of lockdown has been the chance to look out over the garden whilst working. I haven’t seen much to be honest (although the first village Marsh Harrier since the war was a bonus last autumn) but that all changed on Wednesday.

The cold weather and putting out food had brought really good numbers of birds to the garden. At the back of the crab apple tree I noticed one small, active bird which then hopped into sight. It was an obvious phylloscopus warbler but unlike the occasional wintering Chiffchaffs we get in the garden this was a noticeably dark, drab brown bird. There was no sign of green or yellow and then I saw the head pattern: A striking well-defined whitish supercilium, emphasised by a dark line through the eye,  ****! DUSKY WARBLER!!

This was all with the naked eye but I had binoculars close at hand and was able to confirm the ID including seeing the shortish wings (which the bird flicked regularly), pinkish brown legs and a relatively fine Chiffchaff like bill. It was also noticeable that the pale throat and upper chest contrasted quite strongly with the rest of the underparts (in fact this was what I first noticed about the bird when it was partly obscured) but I don’t recall hearing this as a particular feature of Dusky.

The only frustration, and a major one, was when I returned from fetching my camera there was no sign of the bird and despite searching in potential areas over the subsequent days no further sightings.  

This will be the first record for North-west Yorkshire and, unsurprisingly, easily the best bird I have seen in the village in more than thirty years of watching.   

Otherwise it has been a quiet week. A walk along the river yesterday produced two Buzzard, five Snipe, three Oystercatchers and a Redshank...

A Sparrowhawk was hunkered down on the riverbank and there were at least four Cormorants including this one which, unusually, didn’t immediately fly away when it saw me…

And as there was so little to photograph this week I’ll finish with this winter-lit Wren from the garden…

31st January 2021

Not a lot to report this week despite continuing areas of floodwater…

Although it has remained frozen for much of it…

Although this didn’t put off the Black-headed Gulls or the Pied Wagtails with a dozen of the latter feeding on one ice-covered pool …

The only addition to the year list was a pair of Wigeon on the floods at Langlands and there were also six Shelduck here together with around 35 Curlew. The flock of Golden Plover has increased to 110…

with an estimated 200 Lapwing still present but that was about it.

I’ll finish with a Greenfinch taken today in the trees in the Old Rectory garden…

A common species but one that has declined dramatically in the village over the last few years presumably due to the impact of the trichomonosis disease which has hit this species particularly hard. There are some signs of recovery though and I have seen noticeably more this winter than for a number of years.

24th January 2021

The icy weather has tended to concentrate birds in areas of feeding. One of these is where a crop of crab apples have fallen which has also meant a small pool of water here has remained unfrozen. Standing near it today I saw a couple of Redwing, fluffed up against the cold…

At least half a dozen Fieldfare…

...15 Blackbirds, six Chaffinch, seven Greenfinch and a single Bullfinch.  

The floods around the village are some of the most extensive I have ever seen here…

But they have been surprisingly poor for birds with only a handful of Mallard, three Shelduck and four Mute Swans seen. The latter looking very out of place in the meadow on Back Lane…

Unable to wade through the deep water on the Langlands field path I went the long way round and saw a decent flock of around 60 Yellowhammer…

A total of sixteen hares (incl. 11 together in a small ploughed field)…

And a nice flock of around 300 Lapwing with 50+ Golden Plover mixed in.

As I was walking back with the bright winter sun behind me a female Sparrowhawk chasing along the edge of a shelter belt failed to see me. Fortunately I ducked just in time and it just made contact with the top of my hat. I think the consequences for both bird and human would not have been pleasant if I hadn’t!

I walked along the Swale yesterday but still no sign of cold weather movements on to the river, my first Little Egret of the year, Oystercatcher, two Buzzard, a Grey Wagtail and four Mute Swans (presumably the birds from Langlands) were the only sightings of note .

I did meet Rachel though who I hadn’t seen for ages. We were chatting about birds I’d seen and I encouraged her to wear binoculars when she was out walking. She took my advice and I got an email from her today, she had seen what was undoubtedly a Long-eared Owl  roosting in a riverside tree! Unfortunately by the time I had picked up the message and headed down there was no sign. Sort of cruel given the numbers of times I have walked that stretch of the river(!) but a great sighting nonetheless.

Other sightings since my last post have included Green Sandpiper and Redshank on the river, a spring of 12 Teal near the railway bridge and the good year for Grey Partridge continues with a covey of 23 feeding out in the open (but distant) down Potter Lane.

 

10th January 2021

A week of cold and snow in the parish…

And a walk along the river hoping for birds pushed off the frozen local stillwaters…

...in the end, apart from three Goosander, a Little Grebe and a handful of Snipe flushed from the edge, it was largely birdless. Instead the garden was the place to be with excellent numbers of birds feeding there. This included at one point (literally)  four and twenty Blackbirds feeding in our Siberian crab apple…

And regular sightings of Fieldfare…

But more unusually small numbers of Redwings, a normally very scarce visitor to our garden…

Other birds in the garden included Treecreeper (working up the ‘trunk’ of an old rose bush), Nuthatch, Mistle Thrush and Tree Sparrow as well as four corvid species and the usual tits, finches, Starlings and Woodpigeons.

There were also three Treecreepers in the Magic Garden this afternoon along with a Woodcock. A second Woodcock was flushed from the Lower Fields.

3rd January 2021

My parish list for 2020 finished on 106 species, about average for recent years although I missed a couple of ‘easy’ species. First bird of 2021 was…Blackbird. Not surprising given we had a crowd of 20 feeding in our small garden, particularly attracted by the fallen Siberian crab apples. More surprisingly there were two Redwings with them, we rarely get this species in the garden. They are much the scarcer of the two winter thrushes in the parish but there have been reasonable numbers feeding in the fields this week…

We also had three Bullfinches in the garden…

And a couple of Fieldfares…

There have been some quite extensive floods around the village, this is one of my favourite views  

Probably a good representation of a typical winter view before the post war drainage. Unfortunately the water didn’t attract very much, with a pair of Wigeon amongst the Mallard flock and a couple of young Mute Swans the highlights. The floodwater then froze putting an end to hopes of a rarer duck although it didn’t put the gulls off…

And I also saw a Hare running across the frozen water. It made a fantastic sound on the ice, like a flock of Waxwings! Other mammal sightings included six Roe Deer on Langlands and a Weasel here. Although I see Stoats with some regularity I haven’t spotted their smaller cousin for three or four years. I first saw it climbing up the trunk of a tree but despite it constantly returning to look me over it was so active that I could only manage this one poor photo…

Finally a couple of walks along the river turned up two Little Egret,  a group of six Goosander, three Mute Swan, 30 Mallard and a single Wigeon. Three Oystercatchers and a group of 13 Golden Plover were the only waders and a single Grey Wagtail the only passerine of note...