Soil Hill and Garden

Bank Holiday Monday: a day spent trying to avoid the crowds. As a result we went to Wycolle in the morning. It was another lovely day but the wildlife remained a little on the sparse side, a pretty usual feature of the site. In the duckpond there were plenty of frogs, as in absolutely loads, and even a couple on the lawn around that we moved to avoid anything bad happening to.

Birds were the usual suspects although my dad and I walked a little further than usual and were rewarded with nice views of Common Buzzard, which is the first time we have seen one here. Other than that there were only a usual assembly of moorland species; Oystercatcher, Curlew, Lapwing being the highlights.

Species List:

Wycolle CP: Meadow Pipit, Pheasant, Chaffinch, Blue Tit, Magpie, Dunnock, Robin, Wren, Carrion Crow, Jackdaw, Great Tit, Skylark, Oystercatcher, Woodpigeon, Mallard, Blackbird, Song Thrush, Mistle Thrush, Moorhen, Common Buzzard, Curlew, Lapwing, 

In the afternoon I went up to Soil Hill armed with the scope and tripod, hoping to pick out an osprey. Sadly I did not pick one out but I did manage to spot another Common Buzzard, first at half 3 distantly over Oxenhope and then at half 4 more over towards Bradford when I was able to pick out actual plumage features for the first time. Also had a Sparrowhawk, or possibly 2 and 2 kestrels. Aside from them there was nothing unusual, but it gave me a chance to practice more with the scope and get used to identifying small blobs on the horizon for 2 and a half hours. Inexplicably still no wheatears! I bumped into Brian Sumner too, which was nice to have a catch up.

Species List:

Soil Hill: Common Buzzard, Herring Gull, Lesser Black-Backed Gull, Black-Headed Gull, Feral Pigeon, Woodpigeon, Mallard, Meadow Pipit, Skylark, Linnet, Lapwing, Curlew, Blackbird, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, 

Between site visits the garden was a hive of amphibian activity. I reckon we had at least 25 frogs in the two ponds with out first clumps of spawn for the year. There was one group of around 10 frogs all sat together in one of the plant pots, creating a very crowded scene!

-Common Frog

While watching the frogs a Long-Tailed Tit flew over, which is only the 3rd record for the garden. It landed in a tree adjacent to the wall along the field. It then flew off up the track. My mum had said she had seen one on the feeders 2 days ago, so I guess this is the same bird.

There continued to be a few Meadow Pipits flying over, and we heard a bird of prey calling but could not find it. It would seem likely that this would be the Buzzard frequenting the nearby moors, as that's the only bird of prey we have seen around recently.

Species List:

Garden: Long-Tailed Tit, Mallard, Carrion Crow, Jackdaw, Meadow Pipit, Chaffinch, Blue Tit,

Soil Hill

Not been much going on recently as I have been mainly birding Soil Hill, where there tend not to be many birds. However, there was a little bit today so I may as well do a round up of the last few days.

Nothing happened yesterday, though I bumped into Nigel up there and we had a chat about the remarkable lack of wheatears up on the hill. Was there anything else up there? Nope! Just the usual suspects, though there was a reasonable fall of Mipits and Skylarks, better than any of my previous visit.

Species List:

Soil Hill: Woodpigeon, Feral Pigeon, Meadow Pipit, Skylark, Lapwing, Herring Gull, Lesser Black-Backed Gull, Grey Heron, Kestrel

Today was much better, probably as a result of the weather, which was very warm. Still no wheatears but plenty of Mipits and Skylarks and other usual suspects. I had hoped to maybe pick up an osprey moving but no joy. However I did pick up a raptor moving over Ovenden moor. It was soaring and appeared to have broad, rounded wings with a short, rounded tail. Sadly the haze meant I could get nothing much on it, but on profile and giss I put it down as a Buzzard, which is a patch tick for me (Somehow).

Also, on the way up I spotted my first caterpillar of the year though I seem to recall this species (whatever it is) that I have seen it before in November, so I am familiar with this species in odd seasons.

-Caterpillar

Species List:

Soil Hill: Sparrowhawk, Curlew, Lapwing, Meadow Pipit, Carrion Crow, Jackdaw, Common Buzzard, Woodpigeon, Feral Pigeon, Skylark, Herring Gull, Lesser Black-Backed Gull, 

We also had a fantastic day in the garden with the warm weather. We must have had about 15 frogs in the pond, and they spent all day singing. I took a few shots but not as many as usual. We have no frogspawn yet but it shouldn't be long, that's for certain.

-Common Frog

While waiting for dinner I set up the scope in the back yard on the decking and scanned the horizon for stuff. I picked up a Grey Heron flying over the hills, as well as a descending Skylark, which is a garden tick technically. There remained Mipits flying overhead, which has been a regular feature of the recent time at home.

In the evening when I was outside I heard the local Little Owl calling. I decided to get up my new scope and see if I could find it. I spent a while looking before I picked it up in a tree on the far hillside. The scope more than rose up to the challenge, though the view was not exceptional I did manage to get a very poor record shot. Still, its great to have seen it again, since its always around and I have only ever seen it twice before. Fantastic!!

-Little Owl

So its been a pretty good day, and have got some really nice birds to show for it...

Species List:

Garden: Grey Heron, Little Owl, Chaffinch, Carrion Crow, Jackdaw, Woodpigeon, Blue Tit, Skylark, Meadow Pipit, 

Soil Hill

A fairly standard return to the patch, highlighted by a lack of birds. Its so nice to be back booting around Soil Hill, though the breeze meant I did not stay up there long, and I don't think I would have missed much birdwise, the highlight being a Curlew in one of the fields next to the track.

I did however see my first frogspawn of the year. I have not seen any in Sheffield though clearly they have been busy here for some time as there was tonnes of the stuff in all the pools. Now we just have to hope that the pools don't dry out like they have done in the past.

-Frogspawn

Species List:

Soil Hill: Starling, Curlew, Mallard, Meadow Pipit, Skylark, Lapwing, Carrion Crow, Jackdaw, Woodpigeon, Feral Pigeon

Wycolle CP

So today we decided to go for a family walk at Wycolle CP in Lancashire. Never a true hot-spot for birds but there is usually something around. As it was Easter Monday there were quite a few people around which did not help but there were odd bits to see.

Bird wise it was pretty quiet, with good numbers of Chaffinch and the highlight being a Mistle Thrush that went over at one point. On the duck-pond there were around 29 ducklings, which is very high for the time of year, I would say at least 3 broods there, but they were all scattered and meandering wherever they wanted. 

There were other things around too, my first orange tip of the year, and there were at least 2, as well as my first tadpoles of the year. Surprisingly they are quite big too, suggesting that they have been hatched for some time.

-Tadpoles

On the way back the drive provided us with Red Grouse, Meadow Pipit and a pair of Curlew, which was nice.

Species List:

Wycolle CP: Mistle Thrush, Mallard, Chaffinch, Great Tit, Blackbird, Carrion Crow, Magpie, Willow Warbler, Wren, Swallow, Woodpigeon, Lesser Black-Backed Gull,

Driving: Lapwing, Curlew, Meadow Pipit, Red Grouse, Carrion Crow, Jackdaw, Canada Goose,

Garden Frogspawn

Not quite as exciting as over the past few days, as I took the day off to work on my essay, but we now have frogspawn in our Garden pond. Its not much, not as much as up on the moors yesterday, but it looks really nice and healthy, which is more than can be said for yesterdays. Hopefully we will have another good year with frogs, though I have still yet to see one in Yorkshire, or even a trace in our pond. Sure sign that spring is here though...

-Frogspawn

Uni Semester 2 Week 4

Tuesday
Between lectures we sat in the cafe in the students union to kill time, and as we were sat there I spotted a Sparrowhawk gliding lazily past the window sending the pigeons crazy. The view was brief but it was something to write about.

Thursday
Wandering back at about 3.00 Friday morning I was surprised by the fact that about 10 different robins seemed to be singing. Even though this phenomenon has been described it still seems to bizarre when your there surrounded by it.

Friday
Walking to football on Friday late afternoon I spotted a very drowsy looking tree bumblebee near Broomhill. Its my first of the year, which was exciting, a sign that spring is well on its way

Sunday
Walking to Church this evening I encountered a common frog sat on the pavement, my first of the year. I decided it would probably be a better idea to move it from the pavement, even though it would mean touching it with naked hands, than leaving it there to be trod on. It was a lovely looking frog, rather large too.

Oats Royd

I dont go to this site as often as I should, considering how close we live to it, however for that reason it gave me the perfect site to go to as a mid revision break. I did not clearly know how to get to it, so went over the top road, which was badly overgrown. At the top before the descent into the actual reserve there were some shaded overgrown ponds in which there were a few frogs resting from the heat

-Common Frog

On the descent I flushed my first damselfly of the year, large red, and also got to watch a lovely willow warbler singing on top of a birch tree

-Willow warbler

The actual reserve was teeming with insect life and there were a few birds about too. On the ponds there two families of canada geese and a family ducks. There was also a moorhen and a pair of domestic geese. On the insect front there were quite a few damselflies, but they were difficult to track down to photograph

-Common blue damselfly

But there were also a large number butterflies, including orange tip and peacock, with an excess of large whites, small whites and green viened whites...

-Male orange tip

-Peacock

Frogspawn

Just a quick photo showing all the lovely frogspawn we now have. We do have more but it is shrouded in weed and so not very photographable, as it were

Frog update

Just a quick update from the frog post yesterday, we now have frogspawn to go with them. sign that the season is really starting to get going.

Frogs

Our annual frog influx began this morning, with at least four in the bottom pond. Sadly, I have no photos as of yet due to more card reader issues...

Undisclosed site

Went out with the countryside service tonight to look at the potential for great crested newt habitat next to an already inhabited pond. Sadly we diddnt see any GC Newts tonight, but we did see both smooth and palmate newts, as well as a frog. It was a great place, and glad to know that great crested newts are doing well in calderdale.

Ogden

Today was an Ogden watch day, and luckily the sun shone for the first time this week. It was a good thing to as we spent the morning stripping tree shelters of young trees. Whilst doing that I spotted a scorpion-fly, a large white and a grasshopper


-Grasshopper















When we had finished and it was time to shut the shutters, I found a moth was hiding under one of the shutters.


-Moth, of some description
















 After Watch group I went for a walk up to the pools, giants tooth and the moors to see if I could
find anything. Up at the pools I diddnt find any dragonflies but I did find quite a few damselflies and a lot of frogs


-Large Red Damselfly





-Common Frog















After leaving the pools I headed up towards the giants tooth. At the start of the path up to the giants tooth, I spotted a tree-creeper, a bird that I had not seen at this site for a few years now.

-Treecreeper














Up at the giants tooth I was surrounded by a really wierd call. I managed to find the birds doing it but found it difficult to tell what they were. After checking my photos I reckoned that they were goldfinches. However, after getting home and properly checking them, it turns out that they were actually siskins in song flight.



-Siskin in song flight















Up on the moors I was dissapointed to find that the moors were practically drown due to the ammount of rain. There was hardly anything growing and hardly anything to see. I did however spot a lapwing flying overhead, which was nice.


-Lapwing















 The only insects that I managed to find were small heath butterflies which were in abundance at the top of the river, up the gorge, which was flooded. The butterflies though were very easy to photograph.



-Small Heath



The garden frogs in the may heat

Due to the recent hot spell, we have had plenty of frogs in the pond, I assume trying to keep cool. On one day, we had seven frogs in the bottom pond, and another in the top pond. We also had the novelty of one frog going down the waterfall from top pond to bottom pond. On most days, we have had around 5 frogs in total, which is the kind of number we would expect when they were breeding. They have been great company in the back yard. On a night, we would often get at least one frog that left the pond, that could be found round its edge. One night we had a frog mauling a slug, and squaring up to another frog, which was pretty cool to see.

Frogs update

And now, to go with our frogs, we have our first batch of frogspawn. Its not much at the moment, but with the numbers of frogs increasing, it should'nt be long before we see some more. The frogs are also much bolder now, so hopefully some pictures to follow.

Frogs

We have our first frogs of the year singing in our pond tonight. I counted three, but they were very nervous and so I diddnt manage any photos.

Northumberland long weekend day 1

As my brother and I had an extra two days added onto our weekend due to teacher training days, we decided it would be an idea to go up north to see some Friends. Initally we wanted to go up for the whole weekend. However, something else came up (FC Halifax vs Charlton Athletic) I requested that we go up after the match for the two days. so we drove up on Sunday evening. It was a long journey, tinged with defeat, but eventually we arrived at the holiday cottage of some friends that we were using in Wooler.
The first morning was cloudy and gloomy, but the tide was right, so we decided to go to Lindisfarne for the day because we hadn't been for a while, a while being a few years. As we drove over the mudflat you could see that it was there was going to be a lot of wildlife to see. we parked the car and headed into the small town so that we could reach the dunes and hopefully see some seals.
As we joined the path we could see a pond, as no sooner had we arrived did a flock of brent geese fly in. Its the first time in at least 5 years since i have seen these, so it was great to see them and get a record shot. Unfortunately they were quite a way out, so I didn't get a great view I would like.

-Brent geese
However, looking at the geese I had overlooked a group of about 6 curlews right in front of me feeding in a sheep field. They were really close, so I was able to get some great views of them.

-Curlews

As we walked down the hedgerow lined we were joined on either side by feildfares and blackbirds feasting on the hawthorn berries. unfortunately they were too flighty for a me to get a photo, so I have no record of them.

in a field opposite us I spotted a flock of starlings, with a few curlews in with them. Sadly they all took flight as we arrived so we didn't really get a great view.

-Curlews and starlings
Shortly after that we arrived at the dunes. If I was honest, I was disappointed with the lack of birds we saw whilst crossing the dunes, but we did see some spectacular lichen formations and also a caterpillar of some description, which did seem rather late.

-Caterpillar
so after a short walk across the dunes, we arrived at the beach where my dad said there would be a seal. How naive we were, there wasn't a single seal anywhere. However, for me at least, there was quite a few interesting birds on the sea to make up for it. There were large groups of cormorants roosting on rocks slightly further out. but there was also a mixed flock of goldeneye and eider on the shore. We were viewing this from the cliff top, hence the dodgy camera angle. I looked at every bird to make sure i wasn't missing any king eiders or long-tailed ducks, but I wasn't in luck.

However one of the eiders didn't quite seem to be behaving properly, and no wonder, as when i actually checked it out, it was the bobbing head of a grey seal, so there was a seal in the end anyway.

-Eiders and Goldeneyes
We decided to walk back the long way, along the coast to the bird hide. I said that I would walk on the beach, while the rest of my family walked across the dunes. Good thing I did too, because I spotted a small group of waders on the shoreline that I didn't immediately recognise. I took a photo and then had a look, and saw that they were bar-tailed godwit, a bird I haven't seen since i knew what to look for. before then, any godwit was casually considered one or the other without proper I.D. But since i learned what I was looking for they have all been black tailed, so it was nice to associate with the other godwit, probably for the first time.

-Bar Tailed Godwit

I followed them up the beach, as they kept moving away from me, as birds generally do, until I lost them onto a natural rock breakwater. Then I spotted my family walking along the beach too so I went up to them. My dad said that my brother had seen a pair of short-eared owls in the dunes, so I went with my brother in an attempt to try and track them down. we walked round the dunes for some time. We tried to use the height to get a vantage point, and on top of one of the dunes, we found a rather nice common frog.

-Common Frog
We continued to look for the owls, but it looked increasingly unlikely as we headed deeper into the dunes. However, just when i was at the point of giving up we found them, and up they went. Only this time I would be able to see where they went. However, it wasn't as simple as that as they continued to fly even without being spooked, until I just decided to try and get them in mid air. The photos don't represent how close we were to the birds, but they are a reasonable effort at a record shot.

-Short eared owl
In case you hadn't guessed, we did manage to find both birds, but sadly we also lost them, and decided to leave them to it. As we headed over the bird hide we spooked a small mammal, mice or vole or summit, so there was clearly plenty of food for the owls.

At the hide we had lunch. However most of the birdlife was on the other side of the pond. That included shoveler and teal, those being the main attraction. However, as we neared the end of lunch a pair of teal appeared in the small pool in front of us, so I was able to get some shots of the encounter. it was also good because it let us appreciate these beautiful birds, at such close quarters.

-Common Teal

After lunch, we left the hide and walked along the coast towards the holy island castle. At a point where there was a small dip and shorter grass along the seafront, I flushed a small passerine. my first though was that it was a linnet, but the white bars on the wings made me realise my mistake almost immediately. I then had an excitement attack, as i realised that it was a snow bunting, only the second time I have ever seen one.

While these thoughts were going around my head, the bird moved a few meters further up the path, which I was relieved about, as I didn't want to not a get a view of it. I crept up, eating the distance between me and the bird, but there was no real reason for stealth, as the bird was seriously bold. But I didn't know that, so I spent five minuets creeping up. Only when I was less than 1m away did I realise that maybe the bird didn't care. It did, however, allow me to get some great record shots that I wanted. sadly the overcast Sky's meant that I had to alter most camera settings, leaving me with some shots that were not as good as I wanted. Even so, it was still a great thing to see, and for only my second ever...Not bad.

-snow bunting

I eventually left the bird, although rater reluctantly due to the fact that I might be pushed for time, and that my parents had never stopped, but carried on walking on a different path.

As I walked towards the car park I passed the pools where that morning there had been a flock of brent geese. Just before i reached the pool, a pair of brent geese flew right over me, sadly too close and quick to get the photos I wanted, but I managed to get a close record shot.

-Brent Goose

As I mentioned before, I was about to pass the pool, where sadly there were no brent geese, but there was a grey heron fishing in a small drainage ditch, and also a few other wildfowl species that were unrecognisable for this distance, and with no bins...

-Grey Heron
I caught up with my parents, and we started to make our way across the causeway. it was almost high tide, so most of the shoreline birds were being pushed up towards the road, so we got some great views of birds. No sooner had we left the island than we saw a flock of brent geese, feeding offshore.

-Brent geese

furthur on the causeway where we would be nearer to where most shorebirds would have been feeding we found the wave edge dotted with hundereds of wading birds, dunlins, redshank, godwits and curlews. It was quite cool to see, although we knew we diddnt have long to savour the experience.

-Dunlin

-Wading Birds

-Dunlin

-wading birds

Nearer the mainland we spotted a group of four red-breasted mergansers fishing nearer the shore

-Red-Breasted mergansers

-Wading Birds