Lower Derwent Valley Birding

Spent the afternoon birding at North Duffield Carrs and Ings, and Bubwith Ings with James, though I had an hour or so down there before he arrived.

North Duffield Ings and Bubwith Ings were both stacked out with waders and wildfowl.  Highlights included: 4 Black-tailed Godwit, 50 Ruff, 400 Dunlin, 800 Golden Plover, 1500 Lapwing, 20 Redshank, 1 Oystercatcher, 10 Curlew, 2 Snipe. There was a good 30+ Whooper Swan, Mute Swan and Black Swan on the water with Greylag, Canada and 2 Egyptian Geese also present. 162 Pochard were on Bubwith Ings (though probably under-estimate as many were under trees), plenty of the usual suspects: Pintail, Wigeon, Teal, Tufted Duck, Mallard, Gadwall.

Unsurprisingly the abundance of birds was attractive to raptors. I had 4 Buzzard, 2 Kestrel (one below), Sparrowhawk and a 1st winter/female Merlin.

Derwent Cottage Farm had hardly any swans today: about 8, hardly worth stopping... glad we checked them though as two of them were the Bewick's Swans!! The field was rammed with Golden Plover (1000+) and Lapwing (800) along with 100 Dunlin and a few Ruff. Also a small flock (c25 Linnet).

North Duffield Carrs was fairly quiet though drake Greater Scaup, Great-crested Grebe, 3 Little Grebe, 3 Goldeneye, 10 Curlew,were nice, along with the regulars: Mute Swan, Teal, Wigeon, Tufted Duck, Pochard, Black-headed and Common Gulls, Coot and Moorhen etc.

The morning dog walk was fairly quiet today, no Barn Owls today, though 2 and 1 in the last couple of days were nice. Today it was mainly Bullfinch, Tree Sparrow and Yellowhammer.

On Thursday I had a nice garden visitor, Song Thrush (photo below).

Fantastic Day in LDV

Had a great day birding round the Lower Derwent Valley with Lewis (off the RSPB Scotland) today.  Highlights included:

North Duffield/Bubwith/Aughton Area:

• Barnacle Goose (3 flocks: 11, 53 and 15)
• Bewick's Swan (2)
• Whooper Swan (80+)
• Greater Scaup (1 drake) - pics below
• Egyptian Goose (2)
• Black-tailed Godwit (2)
• Great Spotted Woodpecker (3 males drumming)
• Skylark - lots singing
• Sparrowhawk (3)
• Curlew (11+)
• Dunlin (200+)
• Lapwing (c2000)
• Golden Plover (600+)
• Great Crested Grebe (1)
• Little Grebe (2)
• Marsh Tit (2)

Thorganby/Wheldrake Area:

• Glaucous Gulls (2 1st winters)
• Greater Scaup (1 drake)
• Barn Owl (2) - pics below
• Peregrine (1 adult male)
• Black-tailed Godwit (2) - same 2 as at North Duffield Ings???
• Curlew (26)
• Lawing (c1500)

Plenty of other 'nice' birds around: Bullfinch, Yellowhammer, Siskin, Lesser Redpoll, Tree Sparrow, Grey Partridge etc etc...

Barn Owl © Andy Walker 2013

Barn Owl © Andy Walker 2013

Barn Owl © Andy Walker 2013

Barnacle Goose (flock of 53)

Barnacle Goose (part of the flock)

Scaup (Phone-scoped)

Lewis enjoying the Bewick's Swan

Me at Castle Howard at dusk (photo Lewis Davies)

LDV + Castle Howard Birding

Went birding locally today, after the fog finally lifted! Nice to go birding with Lewis, Ade and Rich.

First off was North Duffield/Bubwith area though didn't quite go as planned due to a female Sparrowhawk and some loud gunshots flushing everything to the back of the area (straight into the sun).

Did get a lot of Whooper and Mute Swans and the Black Swan and two Bewick's Swans (these were very very distant this am).  Had a nice flock of 40 Ruff, 150 Dunlin and several hundred Lapwing/Golden Plover. There was also 3 Curlew and 20+ Redshank about. Lots of the usual Pintail, Wigeon, Teal etc.

On the Bubwith Ings side there was a flock of 251 Pochard (though probably and under-estimate). The couple of Egyptian Geese showed nicely today.

Gypo Geese (Phone-scoped)

Gypo Geese (Phone-scoped)

A drive through the LDV resulted in Barn Owl, Pink-footed Goose, my first local pair of Oystercatcher of the year and more Curlew and Redshank. Also lots of farmland birds like Corn Bunting, Yellowhammer, Tree Sparrow.

Spent the afternoon near Castle Howard and stayed fairly late in the afternoon. Impressive gull roost - mainly Common and Black-headed Gulls. Another 40 Pochard (only one end counted so presumably an under-estimation. 9 Goosander, 2 Great Crested Grebes, 1 Little Grebe and the female Scaup too.

Just as we were leaving a Barn Owl gave some really nice views.

Four Swans and a Blackberry...

I popped across to North Duffield at lunchtime to see if there was much doing. It was fairly quiet generally on the floods with one Great Crested Grebe all of note. However there was a (presumably new) drake Greater Scaup alone on the river. Still a good number of Pochard and Tufted Duck about on Bubwith Ings, but either too far away or under trees so I didn't try counting them.

I had a look at the fields next to the car park and came across 151 Greylag Geese, 2 Egyptian Geese (record shot below), several hundred Lapwing, 50+ Golden Plover, 3 Ruff but the highlight was getting the 2 Bewick's Swans in the same scope view as a herd of Whooper Swans, Mute Swans and a single Black Swan and managing to grab a record shot on my phone of them all together (below)! I wonder how many other times all these four have been photographed together?

The two (always distant) Egyptian Geese (phone-scoped)

Whooper, Bewick's, Black and Mute Swans all in the same view! (phone-scoped) 

Skylark Surprise: Major Movement in LDV

Did some more local birding today though had a later start than planned. Didn't travel far but still had some decent birds and decent counts of these too.

First stop was the Geoff Smith Hide in the hope that a nice drake Smew had dropped in. It hadn't.  The drake Greater Scaup was still present, but was fast asleep. There was tonnes of wildfowl present but most of it was spread all over the water so not really possible to count. I did notice Great Crested Grebe was still present, along with plenty of Whooper Swan, Pintail, Pochard, Goldeneye, Tufted Duck, Shoveler, Gadwall and Mallard. There was a couple of Ruff, Redshank, Lapwing and Golden Plover along the riverbank, along with 2 Reed Bunting and several Fieldfare.

Rather unhelpfully a couple of people walked along the riverbank (beyond where the public access stops) and flushed (high) hundreds of birds off the river which all flew onto the reserve, making counting anything totally impossible.

Next stop was Bubwith Bridge. North Duffield Ings was frozen over, as was the majority of Bubwith Ings. The small pool that wasn't frozen contained Pintail, Shelduck, Wigeon and Teal. However it was the river here that held the main attraction; Common Snipe. 62 of them, some feeding, some roosting. There was also about 50 Lapwing and 6 Redshank here (and another 100 Teal).  Scanning through the Snipe I picked up about 12 Skylark, 3 Meadow Pipit, 10 Tree Sparrow, 6 Reed Bunting and 30+ Fieldfare.

Next stop was Intake Lane (just behind Bubwith Village).  Ollie and Chris had tipped me off that there was a large flock of passerines here but they hadn't got time to check them out properly. so I went to explore. It was pretty remarkable! The field was stacked out with Skylark. I counted 420 feeding in the stubble, then just as I was leaving another flock of at least 250 flew in and joined them! A flock of 670 Skylark is a pretty remarkable sight! Also here was at least 30 Corn Bunting, 38 Reed Bunting, 14 Yellowhammer, 15 Tree Sparrow and 5 Meadow Pipit.

Driving towards Ellerton I found a flock of 177 Linnet feeding in a cover-crop (really shows the benefit of these schemes) in with this flock was at least 2 Brambling, 17 Reed Bunting, 30 Chaffinch, 3 Yellowhammer, 2 Corn Bunting, 18 Tree Sparrow and 30 Chaffinch. Another 25 Skylark flew over.

A short drive later and I located another flock of Skylark, this time 144 that showed to really close range. Unfortunately I couldn't pick out anything more unusual amongst them! Something flushed this flock and as I looked up a cracking juvenile male Peregrine flew low overhead. It wasn't wanting Skylark for tea, I expect it had its mind set on Woodpigeon supper! A Barn Owl was the last treat of the day.

So a good selection of farmland birds with the following totals:

• Skylark: 851
• Linnet: 177
• Reed Bunting: 63
• Corn Bunting: 32
• Yellowhammer: 17
• Tree Sparrow: 43

I know Ollie and Chris recorded quite a few flocks of Skylarks at other locations today (not sure of final numbers yet), but it is pretty obvious that there has been a large hard-weather movement over the weekend, as these birds were certainly not present yesterday and given more time today I'm confident we could have found a lot more!

Smart Brambling!

More Aythya Action North Duffield

Spent the majority of the day at North Duffield Carrs today. Woke to find an inch or so of snow on the deck and had an enjoyable walk with the dogs noting fox, badger, roe deer, rabbit, pheasant and a host of small bird prints in the fresh snow. The hedges were busy with Fieldfare and a flock of 5 or 6 Bullfinch and a couple of Reed Bunting were noted.

Down at the hide I met up with Jono, Chris and Ollie to tales of Cetti's Warblers and Sea-Eagles that I'd missed! The Aythya hybrid/Lesser Scaup thing came close at one time but I only saw it from behind and didn't see the bill clearly enough, the bird did do one wing flap as it was facing away from us, this did look pretty good for Lesser Scaup! (see part 1 of the story so far here, part 2 here).

Chris and Ollie left and Jono picked out another Aythya asleep with a group of distant Pochard, this immediately looked like a much larger bird than the other Aythya and (after making sure we could see the both of them at the same time!) were happy there was definitely two Aythyas present - once this bird put its head up it was clear it was a Greater Scaup (looked like the bird I had last Friday).

Over the course of the day I could only manage a couple of record shots on my phone of the two birds above, though neither are very good as the birds were still distant but you can kind-of make out the differences.

Greater Scaup (phone-scoped)

Aythya Hybrid/Lesser Scaup bird (phone-scoped)

Not long after Ollie and Chris had left the hide we got some phone calls from them informing us that they'd got some Waxwing in the car park. We went straight round (a good job we did too as they were flushed by a truck, flew off and weren't seen again!!). Again, just the following record shots.

Waxwing record shot

Three of the Waxwing

Other wildfowl recorded down there today included Great Crested Grebe (my first here this winter), Little Grebe, 300+ Tufted Duck, 100 Pochard, 100 Pintail, 5000+ Teal/Wigeon, 68 Whooper Swans, 200 Mallard, 5 Shoveler, 25 Goldeneye, 5 Gadwall, 5 Shelduck, 40 Mute Swan, 30 Coot, 6 Moorhen and as dusk approached 'the' pair of Bewick's Swans flew in.

Waders included Lapwing, Ruff, Golden Plover, Redshank, Dunlin and Snipe.  Raptors included Barn Owl, Marsh Harrier, Kestrel and 2 Buzzard. There was quite a few Meadow Pipit, Fieldfare, Redwing, Pied Wagtail and Robin about and several Long-tailed Tit visited the feeders.

The Robin was nice and obliging, allowing me to sort out next years Christmas card!

Robin

Robin

Robin

Long-tailed Tit

LDV Birding

Spent the day round the south of the York recording area today. Tomorrow is the Bird Race which I can't take part in due to other commitments, but I figured I'd go out today and sell my sightings to Tim, Ollie, Jack and Chris' team - The String Quartet.... (Read about last year here)

Where to start... Morning walk with the dogs produced the standard 3 Barn Owl, including 2 that were hunting together just 10ft in front of me! There seemed to be more Fieldfare and Redwing about this morning, a few Tree Sparrows flew through and a small flock of Yellowhammer were noted, but little else really, though a flock of 8 Lesser Redpoll was nice.

I then headed over to Foggathorpe Pools where I had a very nice selection of birds including: over 500 Pink-footed Goose heading north (in 4 flocks of over 100 birds each), Snipe, 2 Crossbill, 10+ Brambling, 15+ Siskin, 20+ Lesser Redpoll, 2 Bullfinch, Yellowhammer, Reed Bunting, Goldcrest, Jay, Red-legged Partridge, 80 Teal, 8 Wigeon and then the usual common stuff... though this was a highlight in itself  with 2,500 Wood Pigeon sounding like a train steaming through!

Next I decided to check out Aughton to see if the Bewick's Swans were still about, and they were. Had 3 of them in with about 9 Whooper Swans. They were a fair deal closer than the other day when I was viewing them at North Duffield. I got some shots, one of which you can actually read the darvic ring (yellow left leg 702) details of this bird here. On to Bubwith Bridge where I counted 70 Pochard, a new high-count for me here. The water is dropping, finally (picture below). There was also Pintail, Wigeon, Teal etc...

I decided to drive down to South Duffield to look for Corn Buntings and in doing so found an incredibly impressive mixed flock including: 200 Tree Sparrow, 120 Corn Bunting, 20 Yellowhammer, 20 Reed Bunting, 35+ Linnet, 15+ Chaffinch and several hundred Fieldfare and Redwing. A lone Sparrowhawk was patrolling but this area looks spot on for Merlin!

Back at North Duffield for lunch and another flock of Corn Bunting, 20 this time, with another 10 Lesser Redpoll and 500+ Fieldfare and Redwing. Also here Great Spotted Woodpecker, Long-tailed Tit, Kestrel and Sparrowhawk.  A quick visit to Thorganby didn't produce too much though 148 Dunlin was good on recent numbers (and water levels) - thanks to Tim for counting!, Shelduck, Goldeneye and (another) a very showy Barn Owl was cool (though camera in car)!  Finished the afternoon back in the Geoff Smith Hide but it was pretty quiet to be honest! A couple of youngish Lesser Black-backed Gull in with the gull roost, Pintail, and surprisingly no Barn Owl!

Looking forward to tomorrow now!

Bewick Swan "Yellow left 702"

Bewick's Swan

3x Bewick's Swans and 3x Whooper Swans

3x Bewick's Swans + 2x Whooper Swans

Bewick's Swans

Bewick's Swans

Whooper Swans

The floods at Bubwith

New Year off with a Bang.

Did the traditional 1st of January birding today, though due to a late/early finish to New Year celebrations I didn't get out till almost 11! Starling was my first bird of the year for the record.

The dog walk was fairly quiet at first, however it soon picked up with Mistle Thrush, Lesser Redpoll and 20 Brambling in amongst a flock of Greenfinch, Chaffinch, Goldfinch and Linnet.  All this before I'd had Robin or Wren!

After lunch I went down to North Duffield Carrs to see what was doing. It turned out to be fairly productive.  There was a female-type Marsh Harrier flying around for a bit before it went North up the valley (pics below).  There was  14 Whooper Swan stood out on the riverbank (the water levels had actually increased on yesterdays levels!) along with the usual wildfowl and waders (47+ Pochard, 2 Tufted Duck, 1 male Shoveler, 4 Pintail).

Ollie and Chris joined the crowd in the hide mid-afternoon and it wasn't long before I picked up a gull coming in towards the hide at a tight angle, I could make out that it was a 'white-winger' although the light wasn't great on it, luckily it came towards us and so we nipped out of the back of the hide and caught it as it carried on heading southeast. It was with a Herring Gull. I managed to get a couple of images as record-shots but I think you can just about make it out (heavy crops below)! Was having camera difficulties today. It was larger than the Herring Gull, fairly deep chested with a long bill that appeared pinkish with a dark tip! Unfortunately it didn't drop onto the reserve and just kept going, presumably towards the River Humber.

About an hour later an adult Yellow-legged Gull briefly dropped onto the riverbank but before I could get the camera on it everything took off, I didn't see what caused the disturbance, but whatever it was it was effective! With the large number of Black-headed Gulls and Common Gull roosting on the site I was hoping it would come in and join them, but there was only 2 Herring and 3 Great Black-backed Gulls in by the time I left amongst the thousands of smaller gulls.

A Little Grebe put in a brief appearance on the other side of the river, but was sticking close to the edge for the majority of the time. Two male and a female Bullfinch around the bird feeder was a nice surprise.

I ended the day on 50 species. Not bad from 4 hours of not really doing much or going very far!

Marsh Harrier putting everything up!

Marsh Harrier putting everything up!

Marsh Harrier putting everything up!

Glaucous Gull flying through (big crop of image)

Glaucous Gull flying through (big crop of image)

Glaucous Gull flying through (big crop of image)

Glaucous Gull flying through (big crop of image)

Glaucous Gull flying through (big crop of image)

Review of 2012 will come over the next few days when I can't do any actual birding!

Tim got 174 species in the York Area during 2012 so I've only got 125 species to go to beat that. EASY!

The River Derwent Floods (and some birds)

Popped out this afternoon to see if the floods had decreased much. Not a lot but they had gone down a bit!  I also wanted to get some pictures of the floods from Bubwith Bridge as a gauge for future years to see how future floods compare to this one! Pictures below.

I started at Bubwith Bridge, there was a good 600+ Wigeon (and a few Teal, Mallard) here and a few Mute Swans. The ducks were all concentrated on the very tops of the flood banks that were just visible. A Kestrel was busy along the roadside

On to North Duffield Carrs. There was a flock of about 40 Whooper Swans in the field near the reserve (most had got their heads down so not really possible to check for Bewick's), also lots of Lapwing, Golden Plover and various gulls in the field. I may check it again tomorrow properly.

The North Duffiled Carrs were still well underwater, the flock of 50+ Pochard was still present, 2 drake Pintail showed nicely but were just out of range of the camera and there was a good 500 Wigeon, 300 Teal and a few Gadwall, Mallard, Canada Geese and Greylags. There was also a good 1500 Lapwing present and there was a single Redshank on the riverbank too. A flock of 30 Knot flew south through the valley with a single Dunlin (though I missed these as I was counting Pochard at the time!). As I reached the car park I had a very nice fly-past from a Barn owl. Unfortunately there was no sign of any Regulus sps.

Look out for my annual review of 2012 in the next day or so....

View to NW of Bubwith Bridge looking towards North Duffield Carrs

View to S from Bubwith Bridge of River Derwent

View to SW from Bubwith Bridge (Drax Power Station) looking into sun

Mute Swans on Bubwith Ings through a five-bar gate

Wigeon (and Teal) on the River Derwent S of Bubwith Bridge

Bubwith Bridge

Thorganby Birding LDV

Fancied a change of scenery today so headed over to Thorganby (West Cottingwith Ings) to see if there was anything of interest visible from the Viewing Platform, generally there wasn't but it was still enjoyable in the near-darkness of mid-afternoon and cold cutting wind (no it wasn't!). Was good to catch up with Nige again after briefly catching up at the Buff-bellied Pipit twitch last Sunday - check out his blog here for some local sightings and great photography: Clifton Birding.

I was hoping to view the Whooper and Bewick's Swans from the Thorganby Viewing Platform, but unfortunately they were hidden from this location with only a few birds (not identifiable to species) observed distantly.

I did manage 5 Goldeneye (3 male, 2 female), 7 Shelduck, and 55 Tufted Duck, none of which I'd had at North Duffield Carrs yesterday (and Nige told me of several Goosander at Bank Island). The floods have covered all but the tops of the river/flood banks here and these were at a premium for Wigeon, Teal and Lapwing today with many hundreds of these three species present all squeezing onto somewhere dry.  There was also at least 36 Dunlin observed here.

Something unseen (Peregrine?) went down the eastern side of the Lower Derwent Valley and put up tonnes of Lapwing c500+, there was over 30 Ruff in with these too and several hundred Fieldfare, Redwing and Starling.  Otherwise it was the standard Mallard, Gadwall, Mute Swan etc, didn't see any Shoveler, Pintail or Pochard today, or any Greylag or Canada Geese...

The dog walk this am was the first time I've been back on patch for almost a week and it was notable how few birds were present. Still lots of Chaffinch and Greenfinch so presumably the Brambling are still about too, but the majority of Thrushes seem to have cleared out. Just a couple of Blackbird and Mistle Thrush noted.

Sorry for lack of pictures, too dark etc! Maybe tomorrow....

Swans Everywhere!

A staggering 154 Whooper Swans and 18 Bewick's Swans reported in the LDV in the last day or so! Though I've not seen any recently. There was a large flock of Swans off Bubwith Bridge at last-light on Sunday but I didn't attempt to scope them as I was too busy trying to keep my eye on that plastic Barnacle Goose for Tim!

I had a very brief trip to North Duffield Carrs at lunchtime, it was blowing a gale and torrential rain - with increased water levels again! Not a single bird on the reserve that I could see! So I didn't hang around at all! A few Lapwing flew over Aughton, and there were singles of Black-headed and Common Gulls flying south along the river. That was it!

Back in the LDV

Morning walk produced an incredible immature female Peregrine, she was huge! Only a small flock of finches today, 50+ Linnet and a few Chaffinch and Brambling.

Went down to North Duffield Carrs for a bit this afternoon, it was fairly quiet due to several people walking along the river bank that flushed everything as far as I could see. Eventually it picked up as the afternoon progressed (and the disturbance reduced). Several gulls flew through, Lapwing and Ruff flew in/past but the highlights were 5 Pochard, a very close-up Barn Owl and the two biggies, male Goosander which flew through heading south, and 3 Barnacle Geese (that got the year-listers in a flap...wild/feral.... who knows!)... but can you afford to not see them?...

Had 2 Marsh Harriers this pm, one of which caught a Lapwing! There was a few Whooper Swans about but most were very distant.