27th August

Another walk down the river this morning, still two Greenshank present…

But only five Snipe today plus Curlew and a Common Sandpiper.

A group of nine Goosander were the first I’ve seen for a couple of months…

Other birds seen included two Kingfishers, two Buzzard, two Little Egret, three Teal and around 1000 BH gulls and 150 Herring Gulls.

Pick of the sightings though was a cracking dog Otter. I didn’t manage any decent pics…

But I did ring my wife and she was able to get down in time to see it. At long last her first Otter despite looking for them on Shetland, Hebrides etc!

25th August

Been a little while since I’ve posted, a combination of family holiday in Suffolk and, frankly, little to report but today I walked along the river downstream of Morton Bridge.

Highlights were three Greenshank, a very good count for the parish and my first new ‘tick’ since May…

Other waders included two distant Green Sandpipers, a Common Sandpiper, 50+ Lapwings and a good count of 18 Snipe all flushed from the river bank.

Two Little Egret were also on the river…

As well as three Grey Partridge and Kingfisher.

Elsewhere Paul Thompson photographed a Short-eared Owl sitting in a harvested wheat field near Ladyfield Farm last weekend and there were reports of a Red Kite near the river, undoubtedly the same bird that Andy Johnston reported in Scruton last week.

Away from birds I had nice views of Brown Hawker and Common Darter…

As well as my first Wall butterfly of the year…

15th July

Still unbelievably hot weather here so bird life remained elusive. My bird list is stuck on a pathetic 91 species. I still haven’t seen Little Owl this year which seems particularly strange but does seem to reflect areal decline in their numbers with birds missing from most of their traditional sites.  

Butterflies, on the other hand, seem to be doing well this year. In the Magic Garden and surrounds today I saw around a hundred white butterflies, mostly Small and Green-veined White…

Around half a dozen Ringlets and 30 Meadow Browns..

11 Peacocks (none yesterday), two Red Admirals, four Small Tortoiseshell, one Speckled Wood and best of all, by the How Beck, a Small Skipper. It’s actually a common species nationally but the first I’ve seen in Ainderby for a number of years.

Slightly further afield Chris had relocated a nice colony of White-letter Hairstreak down Myers Lane. Only managed one (poor) shot but as it is a species I rarely see I will include it...

Dragonflies included three Emperors hawking the pond, a couple of Southern Hawkers, which the emperors drove off, and a Brown Hawker which easily held its own against the Emperors.

And I must start to get my head round hoverflies…

My only mammal of note today was a cracking Stoat which was sheltering from the sun under a cattle trough in the Bottom Fields, unfortunately it did a runner before I got chance to photograph it.

24th June

It’s been a while since I last posted which has reflected a post-holiday feeling of things being a bit tame in comparison and little to report and but I managed a walk along the river

There were really good numbers of Banded Demoiselles with at least 50 individuals, the majority seen were males…

They were aggressively interacting with each other but more surprisingly with an Emperor Dragonfly which was holding territory along the river. A number of demoiselles were ‘mobbing’ it as it patrolled. I don’t know whether this is just a mating/territorial instinct or whether they saw the emperor as some sort of threat.

Birds seen along here included Kingfisher, a single Yellow Wagtail, two corn Buntings, three Reed buntings, six Herons, a pair of Oystercatchers and a single Lapwing…

A small group of Sand Martin had set up a colony of around a dozen nests in a newly exposed face but were absent from one of last year’s main sites and generally seem to be around in smaller numbers. It’s the same with House Martins with no nesting pairs recorded in Ainderby Steeple so far this year although Morton numbers seem broadly similar including this group gathering mud in one of the last damp field ditches in the parish…

Kazakhstan

A bit different this week as I have just returned from a brilliant birding trip to Kazakhstan. Nearly 200 species logged in eight days. We covered a wide range of habitats from desert to steppe to high mountains and all in glorious sunshine…

Here's a small selection of the birds seen...

Lammergeier and Long-legged Buzzard, two of the twenty-one species of birds of prey seen (although pick for me was a magnificent Saker falcon).

It's also a great country for shrikes with five species seen. Turkestan Shrikes were particularly numerous...

but my favourite was Long-tailed Shrike...

The mountains were particularly good. The Great Almaty Lake lies at about 2500m...

The really sought after species here is a unique wader, the Ibisbill. They are hard to spot as they mimic the colours of their habitat but we were lucky enough to find one...

The Juniper and Tien Shan spruce forests around the lake held birds like Himalayan Rubythroat...

and Eversmann's Redstart...

and higher (up to 11,000 feet) we found Himalayan Snowcock, Guldenstadt's Redstart (hopping around in the snow!) both Mountain Finches and both Altai and this superb Brown Accentor...

There were also some very familiar birds but of the local subspecies such as this bactriana race Magpie with it's extra long tail...

this very pale and well marked 'hafizi' form of Nightingale 

the 'halimodendri' form of Lesser Whitethroat...

and this cracking Masked Wagtail (the same species as our Pied Wag)

and plenty of birds we are familiar with but showing particularly well like Temminck's Stint...

and Nightjar...

Hard to choose a favourite but one candidate would be White-winged Lark as it was such an unexpected find...

If you ever get a chance to go, grab it!

12th May

The year list continues to slowly grow. I had Swift over the river last weekend and the first ‘screaming’ ones yesterday evening with about ten birds over the house. This Garden Warbler was singing by the river at Morton last Saturday…

They are a scarce breeder in the parish and seem to be almost exclusively confined to hawthorns by the Swale.

The Yellow Wagtail is one of my favourite summer visitors. Nationally they have declined significantly but they keep a toe-hold in the parish, mainly in the sheep pasture along the river. Like a lot of birds they have been late in arriving but I had a pair today…

And I also added Common Sandpiper, although it was so flighty that I only managed this single very distant shot…

Also along the river I had six Cormorant, a Little Egret, four Oystercatchers, four Corn Buntings, three singing Reed Buntings but only two Whitethroats and a single Willow Warbler…

As well as a few common Birds of prey with eight Buzzards..

four of these were in a ‘kettle’ with a Sparrowhawk and Kestel…

6th May

Another beautiful day today, with light south-easterlies I really expected a significant arrival of summer migrants but still no real sign of this. Highlight was this cracking Tawny Owl roosting pretty much out in the open in the Magic Garden.

Yesterday John and Beryl came and set up their mist nets in the Garden. This reinforced the view that birds are very late with only a single Whitethroat, three Blackcaps, four Chiffchaffs  and three Willow Warblers representing the summer visitors. This Willow was carrying a ring which wasn’t John’s so will be interesting to see where this has come from…

Two of the Blackcaps were ringed here last year…

In fact there were about a dozen re-traps in all, including three birds caught in succession who were carrying sequential ring numbers from last year. Not sure what the odds on that would be!

But this Treecreeper was unringed…

As was this Goldcrest…

In the end it was an early finish as a breeze blew up and turned the nets from virtually invisible…

To impossible to miss…

I can’t talk about yesterday without mentioning the Tour De Yorkshire which came through the village yesterday.  what a fantastic event…