North Duffield & Arctic Skuas in LDV

Dog walk this morning resulted in my first Cuckoo, first female Blackcap, and 2 Sedge Warblers back on the circuit.

Popped into North Duffield Carrs on my way to work this morning where there was 23 Whimbrel, 1 Greenshank, 1 Black-tailed Godwit (complete with a set of colour rings - see below) and 3 Sedge Warblers. On the way to work I had another couple of Cuckoo and a good number of Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff.

Work was fun, at least it wasn't raining! Highlights were the Red Kites that showed really well for an hour or so. This Meadow Pipit also showed nicely! I had about 46+ Swallow heading north during the survey.

Meadow Pipit (Phone-scoped) 

Meadow Pipit (Phone-scoped) 

Back to North Duffield this evening and I got brief views of a 1st summer Little Gull, I got a couple of record shots below, but it was quite distant. There was at least 28 Whimbrel present, 1 Black-tailed Godwit, 2 Greenshank and a summer plumaged Dunlin flew east.

Distant Little Gull (phone-scoped) 

Distant Little Gull (phone-scoped)  

Distant Little Gull (phone-scoped) with Black-headed for size comparison

Interestingly the Black-tailed Godwit (below) was colour ringed with a code appearing to be:  right leg - yellow over white over yellow and left leg - white over yellow (all above the knee). Will see what I can find out about it...

Colour-ringed Black-tailed Godwit (phone-scoped)

One of the Whimbrel (below) was also colour ringed, I'll provide an update when/if I can get to the bottom of it!

Colour-ringed Whimbrel - where's this one come from and been to? (phone-scoped)

Biggest local news was the 2 Arctic Skuas that Tim found flying north through the valley in the afternoon - a great, if not a bit gripping find!

Little Gull & Black Tern: York

Had  a few decent local birds again today and a few nice year ticks too.

Highlights (more decent local year birds for my non-year-list-year-list):

Black Tern - Cracking adult bird found by Russ this morning hung around for most of the day, showing really well on the floods at Thorganby, again I managed a couple of record shots on my phone.

Black Tern (Phone-scoped)

 Black Tern (Phone-scoped)

Little Gull - 1st summer bird I found at Bubwith Ings this morning. The bird dropped in briefly before clearing off with a group of Black-headed Gulls. I managed to get a couple of record shots on my phone below.

Little Gull (Phone-scoped) 

Little Gull (Phone-scoped) 

Little Gull (Phone-scoped)

Garganey - drake seen again.

Garganey (Phone-scoped)

Other Migrants included:

Cuckoo: 1 Thorganby

Swift (4): 1 over Bubwith Bridge and 3 over Thorganby

Greenshank: 1 (of 2 present) at Thorganby

Whimbrel: 15+ at Thorganby

Black-tailed Godwit: 11 at North Duffield and 94 at Thorganby

Lesser Whitethroat: 1 singing male North Duffield

Common Whitethroat: 2 singing males North Duffield

House Martin: 5/6 at Bubwith Bridge (+ my 2 birds in North Duffield that have been present for ages!)

Swallow: 50+ at Bubwith Bridge

Sand Martin: 2/3 Bubwith Bridge

Yellow Wagtail: 1 Bubwith Bridge

Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff and Blackcap: low numbers throughout valley

(Arctic Tern 3 seen by others in the north of the valley)

(Bar-tailed Godwit: I had a distant bird at North Duffield with the 11 Black-tailed Godwits that I thought could have been Bar-tailed Godwit however in the time it took me to get to a better location to view the bird it had been flushed by a Sparrowhawk and had disappeared. A Bar-tailed Godwit was seen flying through the north of the valley in the early evening...)

Best of the rest: Tawny Owl seen, Little Owl seen, Tufted Duck at Bubwith up to 70 birds with others at North Duffield and Thorganby, Shoveler, Gadwall, several Ruff, Lapwing, Curlew, Redshank, Snipe and the usual farmland passerines e.g. Tree Sparrow, Yellowhammer, Corn Bunting etc.

It was a stormy day today with thunder etc. This was the view from Bubwith.

Storm passing Bubwith