A Wonderful day

It's the end of a great day here. The weather has been just perfect for the end of February - bright sunshine, blue sky, a little chill to the air with a temperature of around 7 C and very little wind. There is still a bit of snow up on the hills in gullies but hopefully that will go soon.

 The birds were out in force and those can sing at this time of year were doing so. Winter is on its last legs but it hasn't gone yet. However, we can now really start looking forward to seeing the first migrants arriving from warmer climes.

In the photo below you can see the red glow of the sky reflected in the house windows on the right of the picture.

view from the window as the sun disappeared

Med Gull at Scarborough

As I've been unable to get out walking for the past 10 days or so, I decided to get in a bit of lazy birding.

Yesterday morning I drove to Hornsea Mere to see the Great Northern Diver and the Black-necked Grebe. Both were there, with the Diver providing good views through the scope in good light. The Grebe however was not as obliging but still had a decent view of the bird. Two good birds without walking more than 20 yards from my invalid carriage aka the car :)

This morning a trip to Scarborough was rewarded with several Mediterranean Gulls -

Med Gull

Med Gull

I also had a look round the harbour but there was nothing of note this morning (although I was unable to get up to look over the harbour wall).

Turnstone

Turnstone

Snow here in the Pennines

It's been snowing all day here in the hills and it's still coming down.The weather is hard on the birds and wildlife so keeping the feeders topped up is a necessity to give them the best chance of survival.

Lots of finches in the garden today and there were 5 Lesser Redpolls included and a single Reed Bunting.

The Pennine Way and Stoodley Pike were obscurred by clouds for most of the day, here's the view from our back garden this afternoon:

Here's the garden, looking as good as anyone's under the snow! My task of rebuilding the dry stone wall is taking much longer than planned - I blame the weather of course.

Mankinholes and Lee Dam

There was a bit of snow on the ground this morning from last night's blizzard but it started thawing soon enough. A walk through Mankinholes to Lee Dam in a chilly breeze blew away the cobwebs.

2 Little Owls were on a wall by the Pennine Bridleway, and 7 Mistle Thrushes were in the field just behind them with about 70 Starlings.

Little Owls

Mistle Thrushes

As I approached Lee Dam I could see a Grey Heron through the metal grille above the overflow outlet -

The Heron is a regular at the dam but this is the first time I'd seen it this year.

Although the temperature got down to -2 last night there was no sign of ice on the dam. Also present with the Heron were 8 Goosander (5 females), 3 Teal (2 females), and 2 Mallards.

All 8 Goosander

7 of the 8 Goosander

Bittern and Water Rails at Hornsea Mere

I walked over to the Mere this morning to see if the Water Rails were still showing. As I approached the entrance I scanned the flooded fields where Moorhens are usually to be seen and sure enough, there were a few Water Rails there as well. I had good clear views which was a nice change as these birds are usually seen in reed beds and are quite elusive - I've probably heard more Water Rails than I've seen over the years!

There were 7 in total today, along with 18 Moorhens.

Onto the Mere and I scanned the reedbeds for Bittern, luckily there was one just into the reeds. It was motionless for most of the time I was there so I didn't get really good views, and the photos I got were from over the other side of the water so even cropping doesn't really help - can you tell what it is yet?

The usual birds were also around, including a few Gadwall.

Barmston this morning

I went up to Barmston in the hope of seeing the juv Iceland Gull that's been reported there for some time. I walked a couple of miles north and south from the car park but I didn't see it, so either it has left or I just didn't see it among the throng of gulls.

There were plenty of other birds about as usual - Oystercatcher, Redshank, Dunlin, Sanderling and a single Grey Plover.

Dunlins

 

Dunlin and Sanderling

Grey Plover

Grey Plover in flight, showing black "armpit"

Sanderlings

 

Little Gull at Hornsea

Went for a walk on the beach at Hornsea this afternoon while the tide was coming in and scanned the usual mass of gulls feeding by the rocks and breakwaters to see if there was anything different out there. Today there was! A small gull with a V shape on the wings, a Little Gull I thought?

It was skimming the surface of the water, very Little Gull-like, and not settling at all. It was mobile and always going North and I had trouble keeping it in the bins as the waves were crashing in and obscurring it every now and again. I stopped to get my camera out and thought I had it OK but then I realised that the settings were all wrong. My friend had borrowed it for an indoor shoot and had changed the settings so I couldn't get a decent shot. By the time I'd sorted it and fired off a few shots the battery went, and the spare was done too (give him his due, Andy did say I'd need my charger!). It was only when I was reviewing what I'd managed to get that I realised he'd changed JPEG to RAW as well. Doh!

At least the bird is recognisable as (I think) a first winter Little Gull.

Brambling and Siskin

My first Brambling of the new year was in the crowd of finches on our feeders this morning. No photo I'm afraid as I've loaned my camera to a friend. There's about 6 or 7 inches of snow here in deepest West Yorkshire and it's still snowing.

There was about 6 or 7 inches of snow and it was still snowing this afternoon when I set off to walk over to Lee Dam to see if there was anything on the water, as although it's still mostly frozen, it was the annual New Year Swim yesterday so they broke the ice for people to be able to swim out far enough to make it a decent race to retrieve the wooden cup that that is the trophy. There wasn't anything on the water at all, not even a Mallard.

I found my 8 year old Fuji digital camera so I took that with me -

A Great Spotted Woodpecker was calling in Shaw Wood and 2 Mistle Thrushes were in Lumbutts churchyard, but best of all were 14 Siskin in the catkins at Lee Dam, which is my best count for Siskin at this site. I took a few photos but the snow was coming straight onto the lens, plus I couldn't remember how to change the settings to compensate for the birds being back-lit and silhouetted against the light as I haven't used this camera for ages. Definite user error!