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.
A day off together today, saw us heading to the Dark Peak area of Derbyshire to complete a circular walk taking in Padley Gorge, Owler Tor, Bolehill Quarry and back to the car at Grindleford station.
The walk takes in some lovely habitat from the temperate rainforest habitat of Padley Gorge, to the open moorland and gritstone sceneryOf Lawrence Field & Owler Tor.
A few nice birds seen, included a lovely singing male Dipper along Burbage Brook, always a joy to see.
After our lovely walk we travelled over to Castleton for some lovely lunch and had a walk around the village and shops before travelling home.
The following are my favourite photos from the day:
A pretty decent year overall in 2024 at East Halton/Goxhill, with me recording a satisfying count of 165 species. This included 4 personal 'New' species for my local patch list, these included in order of appearance, a Nuthatch between East Halton Skitter and Winter's Pond in June, a flyover Woodlark in October, a long awaited Yellow-browed Warbler at Winter's Pond in October and last but not least, only the second record of Red-necked Grebe. This latter record was the first since the famous big freeze in the winter of 1978/79.
I also managed to find only my second record of Purple Sandpiper for my personal patch list, with 2 being found in November.
Several species were not recorded this year and included no Auks being seen, Curlew Sandpiper and Scaup, with a poor showing of seabirds in the autumn also, resulting in only Arctic Skua being seen by myself.
The overall breeding season was poor on a whole with only low numbers of summer migrants arriving and Barn Owls are just about absent, with only one pair being present that I'm aware of.
On the plus side though, Cetti's Warblers continue to do well, with at least 7 singing males and two broods of juveniles were seen and those reed nesting species Marsh Harrier, Bearded Tit and the star this year Bittern also bred.
Waders were represented when Oystercatchers bred with a pair fledging 3 young and Little-ringed Plovers continued to visit, but didn't breed again.
The Marshes were in fairly good condition throughout the year, attracting Wood Sandpipers, Garganey, Little Gulls and Spoonbills in the spring, but there was poor breeding success amongst the Waders unfortunately, with no Redshanks this year and most of the Lapwings attempting to nest, were predated. The autumn saw a party of 5 juvenile Spoonbills spending the day here, my largest personal local patch count of the species to date.
I'm now looking forward to 2025 and to see what this year brings.
The following are some favourite photos and video clips from this year all taken with my phone or phone x telescope combo.
Winter's Pond, December.
Little Egret, Winter's Pond, December.
Female Kingfisher, Winter's Pond, December.
Russian White-fronted Goose, East Halton, December.
Merlin, East Halton Marshes, December.
Stunning Skies Over Goxhill Marsh, December.
A Sleeping Red-necked Grebe, Just How I Found It In December.
Grey Heron, Winter's Pond, December.
Russian White-fronted Geese, East Halton, December.
After The Storm, East Halton, December.
Stunning Sunrise At Winter's Pond, November.
One Of 2 Purple Sandpipers, East Halton, November.
Snow Bunting, Goxhill, November.
Snow Buntings, Goxhill, November.
juvenile/1st Winter Caspian Gull In The Mist, Winter's Pond, September.
Male Cuckoo, Winter's Pond, May.
Bittern, May.
Spoonbill, East Halton Marshes, May.
Wood Sandpiper, East Halton Marshes, May.
Great-white Egret, Winter's Pond, April.
My Earliest Yellow Wagtail Since I Began Birding, March.
A planned trip away with Mrs R to the Lakes, saw us enjoying some lovely time away, unfortunately the weather didn't play ball and we only had one day when we could get out walking.
We certainly made the most of a visit to Keswick and Derwent Water on Monday 30th allowing me to take some decent landscape photos there.
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