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 And Holidays Around Our Beautiful Countryside.
After a lovely stay the previous evening at Hulme End in the White Peak area, today we headed for the Upper Derwent Valley to walk from Fairholmes up and around Derwent and Howden Reservoirs, taking in the pack horse bridge and Slippery Stones.
At first the weather was a bit overcast,but then the sun broke through into a lovely, pleasant day, with some lovely late winter sunshine.
It was a joy to walk here again, as it is one of my favourite areas in the Peak District, with some outstanding scenery looking more like Scandinavia rather than Derbyshire.
A few nice birds seen on today's walk included a couple of Ravens and Common Buzzards,the Ravens putting on a particularly good show,with lots of tumbling and calling, such impressive birds!.
It took us approx. 4.5 hours to walk the 10.5 miles around this stunning area and it was great to get out and about with Mrs R after our bouts of Covid after New Year,another great day out.
A solid start to the new year list today,with highlights including the wintering female Hen Harrier seen hunting the rough field near to Winter's with a Short-eared Owl nearby.
The Marshes held 4 Whooper Swans first thing and a single Russian White-fronted Goose was with the local Greylag flock making for a good start to the year.
Winter's saw a single Drake Pintail and Pochard being the highlights.
The Skitter Pools were covered and revealed the usual suspects,with 4 Water pipits being seen,but no Jack Snipe unfortunately.
A good total of 82 species entered the notebook today.
Saturday 6th January
A whopping 14.3 miles were covered today as Jon and myself covered most of the patch walking up to Goxhill Tilery and back,taking in Skitter Road and East Halton village.
Best sightings went to a Woodcock inadvertently flushed from it's daytime roost at Goxhill Tilery ponds,a pair of Goosander which flew north,Barn Owl near Winter's,a merlin along East Halton Beck,Jay at The Grange and Coal Tit and Mistle Thrush along Jericho lane in East Halton.
A good effort with 76 species logged and some really good numbers of Waders with 6800 Golden Plover at the Skitter.
Saturday 20th January
A blustery day today,with un-forecasted rain setting in from lunch time,saw the visit cut short and no NFY species being seen.
Highlights went to now 2 Russian White-fronted Geese with the local Greylags,2 female Pochard on Winter's,1845 Dunlin between Winter's and the Skitter and 2 Merlin together chasing each other along Marsh Lane,a juvenile male and a female.
The latter sighting is the first time i have seen 2 together on the patch.
A paltry 56 species were recorded on today's visit.
Saturday 27th January
A good visit today,but with nothing particularly rare being seen,but 6 NFY species were added,putting me on 97 species for the local patch list.
The best sightings went to 2 Grey Partridge along Skitter Road,6 Ruff on the Marshes,2 Dark-bellied Brent Geese distantly off Winter's,28 Avocet feeding on the mud off Winter's in the afternoon and the best sighting of the day,a Treecreeper watched with a Tit flock at The Grange.
The latter species is only usually encountered at this time of year,with roving Tit flocks.always really nice to see.
Some decent numbers of Wildfowl and Waders on the Marshes and at Winter's included 465 Wigeon and 78 Icelandic Black-tails on the Marshes and a cracking count of 72 Gadwall at Winter's.
A pretty good start to the year,despite being ill for part of it with Covid or something similar.
A trip out today with Mrs R to Scarborough for a wander and some lunch,saw us seeing the lovely wintering birds in and around the harbour.
The first goodie we encountered was the very smart drake Red-breasted Merganser which has been hanging around the harbour and south bay.
He gave some lovely views,not coming too close,but allowing me to get some record video clips.
These are not too common in this area in winter,so he has drawn quite a few admirers,what a smart bird.
Next was the wintering 1st winter Great-northern Diver,which with a little patience,eventually came over to where i was stood and i managed to get some lovely video.
Divers do seem to like the harbour and are usually seen catching and eating Shore Crabs,which there are certainly plenty.
While watching the Diver and Merg,i was also kept entertained by the local Turnstones showing brilliantly as always as they scavenged for food,occasionally being seen eating chips from passing tourists,brilliant little characters.
The final species i managed to get a decent clip of,was a 1st winter Red-throated Diver watched feeding around the harbour mouth,giving some great views as it preened.
An adult was also watched in the Harbour,but never stopped diving,so i gave up on trying to take some video as it was far too quick for me.
A couple of Harbour Porpoise and a handful of Shag were watched off Marine Drive and it was great to see and hear the local Fulmars back on their breeding ledges along the cliffs.
Another free day today as Mrs R was at work,saw me heading south towards the flagship Lincolnshire RSPB reserve at Frampton Marsh.
I wanted to get there before first light to see the Wild Swan roost before they left for the surrounding fields to feed for the day and after a trouble free drive to the reserve,I arrived to the lovely sound of trumpeting Whooper Swans.
It was blowing a proper gale as forecasted and I quickly got my kit together for my day around the reserve.
As it got light properly there were 250+ Whooper Swans on the wet grassland from the car park,what a fantastic sight and sound to start the day!.
As I knew the wintering Lesser Yellowlegs had been seen around the car park area,it wasn't long before I was watching this elegant American visitor.
It was loosely associating with a Redshank as it fed around the flooded grassland,giving a good chance to compare these two Tringa Sandpipers,what a smart bird.
This is the second time i have seen this bird,enjoying great views back in October last year and the first since i saw a bird in North Lincolnshire at Bagmoor Lake in 2012.
After enjoying super views of this American 'Shank' i made my way over to the 360 hide and spent a good couple of hours watching Wildfowl and Waders from my viewpoint.
Nothing rare was seen apart from more views of the Lesser legs,but it was great to sit and take in such superb views of species such as Whooper Swan,Pintail,Redshank,Lapwings,Avocet,Wigeon,Ruff and Teal.
I spent some time taking advantage of the close views,with some nice phone-scoped videos for my collection.
I even found an adult Whooper Swan with a colour ring,which had been ringed on the 19th November 2018 and was an adult male bird at Martin Mere in Lancashire.He has travelled quite a bit around the British Isles,being seen at Martin Mere on 11 occasions,Loch of Strathbeg in Scotland,near Silloth in Cumbria and near Bescar in Lancashire before my sighting today.
After enjoying the great views from the 360 hide I decided to go for a walk around the rest of the reserve,seeing at least 10 Goldeneye on the Reedbed Lagoon and then at least 2 lovely Brambling in with a mixed flock of Finches feeding in a Sunflower strip.
Other species seen during my wander included a Peregrine,Merlin,at least 7 Marsh Harrier and 35 Ruff.
After arriving back at the car and the look of rain on the horizon,I called it a day and had a steady drive back north to Barnetby.
Fantastic Paintings On Some Old Wash Marker Buoys.
Some Phone-scoped Images Of A Redshank Feeding Close To The 360 Hide.
Following a good forecast today saw Tracey and myself heading out for the day,to a couple of favourite destinations just over the county border in Nottinghamshire.
We arrived fairly early at Clumber and decided to start the day in proper fashion with a full english,a great start to any day!.
After enjoying our brekkie,we set off on the circular walk around the Great Lake.
A search for Hawfinches around the Chapel drew a blank unfortunately.
The main focus of birds today was the Great Lake,with a couple of thousand or so Black-headed Gulls,a few hundred Common,Gulls,16 Herring,17 Lesser black-backed Gulls and an adult Yellow-legged Gull.
From Clumber Bridge the lovely sight of 2 Great-white Egret,were a new species for me here and also from this vantage point were 20 Goosander.
After visiting this lovely place we headed over the short distance to Thoresby Hall/Park to again look for Hawfinches,but again drew a blank unfortunately.
One sighting that was of note was the large amount of Mistletoe growing in the trees,the most i have seen anywhere for a long time.
The following are a few photos from our day.
The Chapel Of St.Mary The Virgin,Clumber Park.
The Courtyard,Clumber Park.
Lovely Views Of The Great Lake.
Clumber Bridge From Where We Watched The Great-white Egrets And Goosanders.
After hearing that a superb male Black-throated Thrush had been found at Tophill Low,a free day today after the previous days patch visit,saw me heading over there and meeting up with TimFor the day.
After an easy drive over the Humber and into the home county,it wasn't long before i was driving along the approach road to Tophill.
A quick stop en-route to look at the Whooper Swan flock feeding in the flooded fields near Watton,saw a good count of 45 birds being present along with 45 Pink-footed Geese and at least 500 Greylags.
After meeting up with Tim and getting our permits for the day,we got our kit together and headed over to O reservoir to look for the Siberian visitor.
Plenty of scanning and several Blackbirds,Fieldfares and Redwings later,a movement just up from a feeding Blackbird saw me finding the target as he fed inside a Hawthorn.
It was pretty windy to say the least,with a blustery south westerly wind and i'm sure that is why he wasn't feeding on the exposed front of the bushes.
We carried on watching this beautiful bird,with occasional disappearances into the thick of the bushes and when he dropped down onto the ground out of view,but with patience we gained some lovely views.
He did move out in the open on a couple of occasions as he was feeding on Hawthorn and Rosehips and did drop down to drink at a small pool under the hedge he was feeding in,giving some superb views,what a cracking bird.
This is my fourth sighting of the species after a female at Newholm near Whitby in North Yorkshire in January 2010,a female at Adwick Washlands in West Yorkshire in January 2017 and a First Winter male,Grimsby,Lincolnshire in January 2020.
The species breeds in Eastern european Russia,to north-central Siberia and North-west Mongolia and winters from Iraq to Arabia and across southern Asia,so is a considerable way from its usual wintering range.
After enjoying the stunning Thrush we had a look on Watton nature reserve nearby and got some decent views of the male Smew,before he went for a fly around the area,my second in as many weeks and overhead a Knot flew west with Golden Plovers and Lapwing.
Also nearby was the wintering Red-necked Grebe,still on its temporary home of O reservoir and was watched sleeping on today's visit.
A quick look on South Marsh,saw us seeing a pair of Marsh Harriers,but little else.
Finally a visit to D Reservoir before Tim had to travel home and it wasn't long before we were watching the Red-crested Pochards,with 5 present today,3 males and 2 females,with a female Marsh Harrier flying south.
As i packed my kit away a Tawny Owl called in the car park,a nice end to the visit.
Male Black-throated Thrush,Showing How The Bird Was Sitting Just In Cover At Times.
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