Welcome To My Blog,This Will Be Mainly Used As A Diary For My Local Birding Patch At East Halton/Goxhill On The Banks Of The Humber Estuary,With Occasional Twitching And Visits Elsewhere Including Photos From Mine & Tracey's Walks Around Our Beautiful Countryside.
Sunday 26 May 2019
Seabird Saturday!....25.05.2019.
A change of scenery today and the annual trip to the seabird mecca that is Bempton Cliffs RSPB on the east coast of god's own country of Yorkshire,saw Dave and myself arriving before the crowds thankfully.This place is such a great experience,even for a well weathered birder like myself.Conditions today were not the best i've experienced here,but we certainly made the most of it and enjoyed the best views of both Puffins and Razorbills we have had here.The following are my favourite images from the day.
Monsal Dale Again!...Sunday 19th May 2019.
Another trip to this superb area of the White Peak area of Derbyshire today with Trace,Kirst & Kev,saw us all having a brilliant day out along with seeing some lovely birds,insects and wild flowers,as well as the fantastic scenery on show.
The following is a summary of what we saw split into families as i often do when i have seen such variety as at this area.
Birds:
Highlights observed,included at least 4 Spotted Flycatcher,my first records of the year,with one bird showing particularly well near to Cressbrook,watched flycatching and singing in the open,lovely to see.
Other summer migrants included at least 4 singing male Redstart,with only 1 being seen singing on the crown of an Ash tree,4 Garden Warbler,Cuckoo,Willow Warblers and Chiffchaff.
Resident species included a couple of sparring male Dipper along the River Wye,3 Mandarin Duck,and half a dozen Grey Wagtails,including a pair at their nest near Litton Mill also along the river.
We also managed to find a wren nest in an old building we had seen them in on our last visit,with the eggs being tiny and a real privilege to see.
Insects:
Pretty impressive to be fair today,with several nice species seen and one new one for me.
The obvious highlight,was the moth my sister Kirsty found,a lovely Ethmia quadrilella,described as having a local distribution throughout the UK,it's food plant being Comfrey and was a new species for me,a cracking little moth.
Other members of the Lepidoptera family included a couple of Speckled Yellow Moths which were a real surprise,seen along the Monsal Trail near to Cressbrook,2 Pyrausta aurata,Orange Tips,Green-veined White,Brimstone and the best of the bunch from the family of Butterflies,a single Dingy Skipper observed along the path towards Litton Mill,which was nice to see.
The best member of the Diptera family we managed to find were a handfull of the lovely Hoverfly species Portevinia maculata.We found them on their host plant Wild Garlic in Monsal Dale and it was great to see these lovely Hovers again and at a new site for me personally.
Wildflowers:
This family certainly deserve a mention here,with several ancient woodland species occurring.Obvious highlights for myself included Sanicle,Creeping Jenny,Welsh Poppy & Woodruff which were all new species for me,with other highlights including Toothwort,Early-purple Orchids,Bugle,Dog's Mercury,Water Avens,Common Rock Rose,Meadow Saxifrage and Greater Stichwort.All this is without mentioning the fantastic trees which incuded quite a lot of Wych Elm.
This area is a must for anyone interested in our native wildlife and the scenery certainly is a big bonus and i look forward to my next visit.
The following is a summary of what we saw split into families as i often do when i have seen such variety as at this area.
Birds:
Highlights observed,included at least 4 Spotted Flycatcher,my first records of the year,with one bird showing particularly well near to Cressbrook,watched flycatching and singing in the open,lovely to see.
Other summer migrants included at least 4 singing male Redstart,with only 1 being seen singing on the crown of an Ash tree,4 Garden Warbler,Cuckoo,Willow Warblers and Chiffchaff.
Resident species included a couple of sparring male Dipper along the River Wye,3 Mandarin Duck,and half a dozen Grey Wagtails,including a pair at their nest near Litton Mill also along the river.
We also managed to find a wren nest in an old building we had seen them in on our last visit,with the eggs being tiny and a real privilege to see.
Insects:
Pretty impressive to be fair today,with several nice species seen and one new one for me.
The obvious highlight,was the moth my sister Kirsty found,a lovely Ethmia quadrilella,described as having a local distribution throughout the UK,it's food plant being Comfrey and was a new species for me,a cracking little moth.
Other members of the Lepidoptera family included a couple of Speckled Yellow Moths which were a real surprise,seen along the Monsal Trail near to Cressbrook,2 Pyrausta aurata,Orange Tips,Green-veined White,Brimstone and the best of the bunch from the family of Butterflies,a single Dingy Skipper observed along the path towards Litton Mill,which was nice to see.
The best member of the Diptera family we managed to find were a handfull of the lovely Hoverfly species Portevinia maculata.We found them on their host plant Wild Garlic in Monsal Dale and it was great to see these lovely Hovers again and at a new site for me personally.
Wildflowers:
This family certainly deserve a mention here,with several ancient woodland species occurring.Obvious highlights for myself included Sanicle,Creeping Jenny,Welsh Poppy & Woodruff which were all new species for me,with other highlights including Toothwort,Early-purple Orchids,Bugle,Dog's Mercury,Water Avens,Common Rock Rose,Meadow Saxifrage and Greater Stichwort.All this is without mentioning the fantastic trees which incuded quite a lot of Wych Elm.
This area is a must for anyone interested in our native wildlife and the scenery certainly is a big bonus and i look forward to my next visit.
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| Welsh Poppy,Monsal Dale. |
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| Hoverfly Sp. Portevinia maculata,Monsal Dale. |
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| Woodruff,Monsal Dale. |
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| Pyrausta aurata,Monsal Dale. |
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| Ethmia quadrilella,Monsal Dale. |
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| Early-purple Orchids,Monsal Trail. |
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| Scenery Near To Cressbrook Tunnel. |
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| Scenery Near To Cressbrook Tunnel. |
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| Scenery Near To Cressbrook. |
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| Litton Mill. |
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| Monsal Head Viaduct. |
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| Monsal Head Viaduct. |
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| Monsal Weir,Monsal Dale. |
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| Monsal Dale. |
Wednesday 22 May 2019
Thorne Moors,Monday 13th May 2019.
After the previous day's report of 2 male Red-footed Falcons at Thorne Moors,i got up bright and early today to attempt to see at least one of the birds,this is how the day unfolded.
I arrived on site pretty early,parking at Crowle and walking onto Thorne as i normally do when visiting,seeing a couple of Garden Warblers with their lovely liquid song and also a brief view of 6 Red Deer as they disappeared into the woodland on the walk.
After crossing into Yorkshire a quick look on Will Pitts scrape revealed nothing of note,but it was just nice to be out in some warm sunshine for a change.
As i turned onto the Limestone Road,i could see another herd of Red Deer all sat down and i walked slowly towards them,taking some shots as i went,before they all got up and disappeared as the earlier animals had,but it was really nice to see some so well.
I arrived at the picnic bench,also known as blue bridge and spent the next 5 hours here watching every single bird in the sky.The rewards were between 25 and 30 Hobbies watched hawking Damselflies and Dragonflies,an impressive sight to say the least,with 20 seen in one scan of the sky.
Unfortunately we did not 100% confirm a Red-foot,but we did see a possible which we thought was one,but it was distant.
Other niceties seen included a male Bearded Tit,3 Cuckoo,a singing male Grasshopper Warbler and a male Willow Tit singing in Will Pitts Wood with quite a few Four-spot Chasers,Large-red Damselflies and my first Hairy Dragonfly of the year.
A very warm day out,but great to see so many Hobbies in the air together,the best site in Yorkshire for the species.
I arrived on site pretty early,parking at Crowle and walking onto Thorne as i normally do when visiting,seeing a couple of Garden Warblers with their lovely liquid song and also a brief view of 6 Red Deer as they disappeared into the woodland on the walk.
After crossing into Yorkshire a quick look on Will Pitts scrape revealed nothing of note,but it was just nice to be out in some warm sunshine for a change.
As i turned onto the Limestone Road,i could see another herd of Red Deer all sat down and i walked slowly towards them,taking some shots as i went,before they all got up and disappeared as the earlier animals had,but it was really nice to see some so well.
I arrived at the picnic bench,also known as blue bridge and spent the next 5 hours here watching every single bird in the sky.The rewards were between 25 and 30 Hobbies watched hawking Damselflies and Dragonflies,an impressive sight to say the least,with 20 seen in one scan of the sky.
Unfortunately we did not 100% confirm a Red-foot,but we did see a possible which we thought was one,but it was distant.
Other niceties seen included a male Bearded Tit,3 Cuckoo,a singing male Grasshopper Warbler and a male Willow Tit singing in Will Pitts Wood with quite a few Four-spot Chasers,Large-red Damselflies and my first Hairy Dragonfly of the year.
A very warm day out,but great to see so many Hobbies in the air together,the best site in Yorkshire for the species.
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| Red Deer,Thorne Moors. |
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| Red Deer,Thorne Moors. |
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| The Limestone Road,Thorne Moors. |
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| Thorne Moors. |
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| Hobby On The Look Out For Odonata,Thorne Moors. |
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| Hobby,Thorne Moors. |
North Yorkshire Leps & Rare Flycatcher......Saturday 11th May.
A pre-planned trip up to North Yorkshire today to see Duke Of Burgundy & Pearl-bordered Fritillaries resulted in a tough first half to the day due to the weather,as it didn't quite turn out how it was forecast.
We began at the first site near Hawnby,in overcast conditions,but there were a couple of breaks in the cloud thankfully.It was during one of these breaks,Dave luckily found a single Duke,his first sighting of the species and we all gathered around and took some photos.It was really lucky we managed to find one as the site was totally devoid of any insects no doubt due to the weather.
A few nice birds were seen and included a female Redstart,with 2 singing males on the walk up to the site and a singing and displaying male Tree Pipit,both species new for the year for myself and the Redstart new for Dave.
Then it was on to site number two at Appleton-Le-Moor to look for Pearl-bordered Fritillary.
Again at this site we were very lucky as a BC Yorkshire group were already on site and had managed to find a single insect,which again as with the Duke we all gathered around and took some images,as the weather continued being overcast.
This was another new butterfly species for Dave and again a pretty lucky sighting going by the weather conditions.
A few birds at this site included Cuckoo and Garden Warbler.
Earlier in the day i had a phone call from birding mate Tim Cowley,to inform me of an interesting Female Ficedula Flycatcher at Easington near Spurn which was showing features of Collared,a species i had yet to see.So i was obviously interested and after a later conversation that the bird had been put out on the bird information services and confirmed as such,we decided to go for it.
The drive to Easington was a nightmare,witnessing a fairly bad accident just outside Pickering and then the drive and roads from Pickering to Easington are not the best in the world,but we eventually arrived at Easington Cemetery to hand full of people watching the bird.
We got out of the car and was onto the bird more or less straight away,the primary patch,grey rump and shawl around the neck noticeable straight away,it certainly looked good.
We continued to watch the bird for a good hour,taking as many images as i could as we watched it flycatching and preening and basically enjoying some great views.At last i had finally seen a Collared Flycatcher after missing the last bird here,a male at Sammy's Point on the 18th May 2013.
As we were watching the Flycatcher,news of an adult male Brown Shrike came out,along the coast at Cowden,but thankfully i had seen the bird at Spurn in November 2016.
A very long day today and pretty stressfull at times,particularly with the crash we witnessed,but it was great to see the butterflies again and the Flycatcher was the icing on the cake for me.
We began at the first site near Hawnby,in overcast conditions,but there were a couple of breaks in the cloud thankfully.It was during one of these breaks,Dave luckily found a single Duke,his first sighting of the species and we all gathered around and took some photos.It was really lucky we managed to find one as the site was totally devoid of any insects no doubt due to the weather.
A few nice birds were seen and included a female Redstart,with 2 singing males on the walk up to the site and a singing and displaying male Tree Pipit,both species new for the year for myself and the Redstart new for Dave.
Then it was on to site number two at Appleton-Le-Moor to look for Pearl-bordered Fritillary.
Again at this site we were very lucky as a BC Yorkshire group were already on site and had managed to find a single insect,which again as with the Duke we all gathered around and took some images,as the weather continued being overcast.
This was another new butterfly species for Dave and again a pretty lucky sighting going by the weather conditions.
A few birds at this site included Cuckoo and Garden Warbler.
Earlier in the day i had a phone call from birding mate Tim Cowley,to inform me of an interesting Female Ficedula Flycatcher at Easington near Spurn which was showing features of Collared,a species i had yet to see.So i was obviously interested and after a later conversation that the bird had been put out on the bird information services and confirmed as such,we decided to go for it.
The drive to Easington was a nightmare,witnessing a fairly bad accident just outside Pickering and then the drive and roads from Pickering to Easington are not the best in the world,but we eventually arrived at Easington Cemetery to hand full of people watching the bird.
We got out of the car and was onto the bird more or less straight away,the primary patch,grey rump and shawl around the neck noticeable straight away,it certainly looked good.
We continued to watch the bird for a good hour,taking as many images as i could as we watched it flycatching and preening and basically enjoying some great views.At last i had finally seen a Collared Flycatcher after missing the last bird here,a male at Sammy's Point on the 18th May 2013.
As we were watching the Flycatcher,news of an adult male Brown Shrike came out,along the coast at Cowden,but thankfully i had seen the bird at Spurn in November 2016.
A very long day today and pretty stressfull at times,particularly with the crash we witnessed,but it was great to see the butterflies again and the Flycatcher was the icing on the cake for me.
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| Duke Of Burgundy,Hawnby,North Yorkshire. |
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| Duke Of Burgundy,Hawnby,North Yorkshire,This Photo Just Illustrates How Small This Species Actually Is. |
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| Common Lizard,Hawnby,North Yorkshire. |
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| Pearl-bordered Fritillary,Appleton-Le-Moor,North Yorkshire. |
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| 2nd Calendar Year Female Collared Flycatcher,Easington Cemetery,East Yorkshire. |
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| You Can See The Grey Shawl Around The Neck & Grey Rump In This Photo. |
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| Not Sharp,But You Can See The Diagnostic Wing Pattern. |
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| Male Redstart,Easington Cemetery. |
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