Spent early Saturday morning on Skipwith Common with Haydn. We were (very optimistically) looking for LSW...no joy. We did score however with excellent views of Woodlark on Sands Lane...
and an unexpected Barn Owl...
Sunday started with an aborted trip to Heslington. We'd intended to try for the LRP at the University. The weather was poor so we ended up having a "full english" at the A19 cafe at Crockey Hill...strongly recommended! I then took Louise home and had a couple of hours down Duff. I decided to have a walk down to Garganey hide to enjoy some close views of Pintail...and maybe an early Sand Martin? Within 5 minutes I was looking at the earliest ever BLACK-NECKED GREBE (76) for the reserve...and my first sighting for 5 years!
 |
| Long way off...c150yds |
I let the locals know and was joined quite quickly by Elaine from the village. We quickly re-found the bird. I then returned to the Geoff Smith hide were I found John Heaton from Foggathorpe. I told him about the BNG and we both tried to re-locate it. I eventually found it again and John was elated as it was a Lifer for him.
Early afternoon we had a stroll up the east bank of the river from Bubwith. The sun came out and the views were stunning. Louise alerted me to a Buzzard drifting west over the river from Aughton. I raised the bins and decided I was looking at the darkest specimen I had ever seen...a very smart bird.
Returned to NDC for the last hour. I managed to find the BNG again plus 3 Oystercatchers. I sent Haydn a text and this tempted him to make the trip from York. He was rewarded with good views from Garganey hide.
We then watched the Whoopers coming into roost. I'd been thinking there might be some new birds present recently (I had 18 adults on Friday night). Peter Roworth confirmed this with a text informing me he'd had a new max' of 152 this morning...a great count. No Bewick's though!
Great Weekend...
No comments:
Post a Comment