Buzzards of Wrench Green

The calm before the storm as the weathermen put it, a beautiful sunny clear day before the predicted snow forcasted for the weekend brought out the Buzzards at Wrench Green. Talking to the local farmer, he has seen up to eight birds together in the last couple of days, today I saw six birds.

Soaring gently through the Hackness Valley across Wrench Green then over towards Hackness Grange Hotel, finding the odd air thermal or two to push themselves high in to the sky. Some of the birds were displaying and most of them were calling after each other, what a great sound to hear and a great sight to see.

Dippers

A pair of Dippers at Hilla Green bridge were perched having a rest from feeding. To see a pair together at this time of year is a good sign, may be they could breed this year in the Hilla Green area?

Far Ings YWT Reserve

Great Crested Grebe

Little Grebe

Cormorant

Goosanders

Shelduck

Shoveler

Coot

Tufted Duck

Tree Sparrow

House Sparrow

Great Tit

Siskin

Goldfich and Tree Sparrows

Brown Rat

A trip to Far Ings YWT Reserve to try and get some images of the drake Smew that has been on the reserve for the past few weeks. It was my first visit to the reserve so I spent a good three hours walking around and finding what was about. Lots of wildfowl present with Shoveler. Teal, Gadwall, Tufted Duck, Mallard, Ruddy Duck, Wigeon and Goosander, with both Little Grebe and Great Crested Grebe showing well.

Large numbers of Cormorant on the two main lakes, but yes you guessed it no sign of the Smew. I moved out of the reserve along the path that runs along side the humber which leads to a small inlet in which large numbers of Lapwing were feeding along side some Shelducks. With no sign of the Smew I headed back to the car park were I found a lot of activity around the feeding station with a Brown Rat helping himself to some easy pickings and House Sparrow, Tree Sparrow, Goldfinch, Siskin, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Robin and Dunnock having a feeding frenzy.

Crossbills

Large flocks of Siskin with small groups of Crossbills mixed in feeding on the spruce and larch cones just north of Langdale End. Distant views but the odd individual birds did move closer to feed in some of the trees by the roadside. Also present were Goldfinch, Chaffinch, Bullfinch, Mistle Thrush & Great Spotted Woodpecker.

Filey Country Park

Knot

Redshank

Oystercatcher

Turnstone

Dunlin

Curlew

Common Gull

Grey Partridge

Another cold rainy day and I new it was high tide so i decided to drive through to Filey Country Park hoping to find some waders on the fields pushed up by the tide. When i arrived the fields were covered with large numbers of Oystercatcher, Redshank, Turnstone, Dunlin, Knot and a few Curlews for good measure. I used the car as a hide and got very close views (plus stayed dry, apart from my camera lens) with the birds coming as close as a couple of metres.

On the way home i dropped in to the Blue Dolphin to see if the Snow Buntings were still present but no sign of them, as i drove out of the main entrance of the Blue Dolphin i found a flock of 10 Grey Partridge sat in a field feeding away in the heavy rain (bonus).