A.W.Birder: Always on the lookout for fine birds...: Waxwing Escrick 2012

Wednesday, 12 December 2012

Waxwings on the Office List

Well, there seems to have been a bit of a push of Waxwings coming through York in the last few days, just low numbers so far.

After connecting with a small flock in Escrick on Sunday I then had a single bird on Monday fly over the garden. A few other small groups have been reported over the last couple of days, e.g. some at Heslington, Askham Bog etc.

I was pleased this lunch time to note 4 Waxwing flying past my office window which made for a nice office tick! Takes me to 43 species, not bad for a city centre office overlooking nothing but roofs and chimney pots!

One from the other day

Monday, 10 December 2012

Waxwing in my Garden!

Well almost, had one fly over this morning just after I'd got back from walking the dogs, didn't have time to look to see if it went down in the village and it was dark when I got back from work, I hate this time of year!

Here's another from yesterday just to prove there was 8 Waxwing at Escrick and I wasn't seeing things!

The Magnificent Seven (and an interloper!)

Tim found a different Scaup at North Duffield this afternoon, oh to be a student again!

Sunday, 9 December 2012

Weekend Birding LDV: Whooper's and Waxers

Minimal effort with a fairly decent return this weekend! Starting with today first. Had a flock of 9 Snipe flyover the garden this morning and a skylark was singing too. Then this afternoon, just as the sun was setting I got a message letting me know there was a small group of Waxwing in Escrick, so I shot across with my camera in the hope that I'd be able to grab some quick shots before it got dark. Unfortunately they weren't in the berry bush and had moved to a distant tree and were sat in the top of it! So I could only manage the following record shots:

Waxwing © Andy Walker

Yesterday afternoon I popped across to the Geoff Smith Hide at North Duffield Carrs to see if there was much on the floods. In the couple of hours I was there I had a single Marsh Harrier, female Scaup, several hundred Lapwing, 7+ Ruff, several Pintail, Shoveler amongst all the common usual suspects. With the water still right up to the base of the hide it meant that several birds were much closer than usual (e.g. Mute Swan and Mallard), there was a family party of Whooper Swans that came fairly close and another group flew north towards Thorganby.

The main highlight here however was whilst I was watching a field full of waders (Golden Plover c350, Lapwing c400, Dunlin c30, Ruff c15) and Starlings c750+ and Fieldfare c200, just as the sun was setting a Peregrine Falcon shot low over the car I was sat in and started to hunt the waders about 10 feet in front of me, I got spectacular views as the bird looped round making several attempts at the waders, as they all took to the air. The Peregrine picked out a lone Lapwing away from the main flock some 500m away and went careering off after it. It made a few dives at the Lapwing which dived out of sight into some scrub near Bubwith Bridge. Breathtaking stuff leaving me regretting my camera being in the boot of my car! Next time...

Mallard © Andy Walker

In my last post I mentioned I'd got some bad news, that will wait for a while until I have a few more things in place.