Orgreave Lakes

Now lectures are a thing again the number of trips to the patch has dropped off. However, with a free afternoon I decided to head down to see how things had changed within the past week. It was a cloudy afternoon but not too cold and with the amount of stuff that had been moving through the country there was a good chance I would be able to get some year-ticks.

2 of the Egyptian Geese were still present on the island on the small lake. There was also an impressive number of Ringed Plovers. I counted 6 in one flock but there were easily more. There were also the usual Little Ringed Plovers but the number of these was harder to judge as they were not all together in the same location. There were also 3 Redshanks along with the usual cast of wildfowl and cormorants.

I did get two yearticks from the small pool, both of them being the ones I expected to get. The first were the Sand Martins which were hunting over the small lake. Initially most of the hirundines were Swallows with a couple of House Martins, but a few Sand Martins came in to join them, and over by the large lake there were ample more hunting over the water. The second year-tick was Common Sandpiper, but I failed to get a photo of one of these as they were too far away on both occasions that I spotted them.

-Sand Martin

I continued on my way round. On the rocks there were 2 male Wheatears, both looking as fantastic as Wheatears usually do. I tried a few photos but all my efforts were blurry unfortunately. Much more obliging on the photo front was a Skylark that was scurrying round no more than 2 meters away from me. As a result I set up the scope and got myself a few Skylark photos like I had long been trying to get.

-Skylark

That was about it with the exception of a couple of lovely black-bellied Dunlin with the Ringed Plovers on the far side of the main lake that I eventually made my way round to. They looked pretty dapper in their summer finery. But sadly they were quite far away so I was resorted to record shots in ever sense of the word

-Dunlin

So it was a lovely return to the patch and with there being more migrants coming through now hopefully there will be a few more things for the weekend wherever I end up going. Two more year-ticks puts me on 141 for the year now, and its only April!

Species List:

Orgreave Lakes: Dunlin, Skylark, Meadow Pipit, Linnet, Sand Martin, House Martin, Swallow, Grey Heron, Ringed Plover, Little Ringed Plover, Common Redshank, Common Sandpiper, Lapwing, Oystercatcher, Pied Wagtail, Northern Wheatear, Magpie, Carrion Crow, Woodpigeon, Feral Pigeon, Reed Bunting, Great Tit, Goosander, Mallard, Gadwall, Cormorant, Canada Goose, Egyptian Goose,