Inter-Revision Break on Soil Hill

In the baking heat, I decided it was about time I did something other than revise. I decided upon a trip to soil hill, since it wasnt windy, rainy or cold, so it would be a bearable walk to see what was there. I knew that I diddnt have time to go to the pools due to the fact that I needed to get back to keep on working. So off I set.

  On the way up, I walked through our growing flock of starlings. There are probably about 200 adults and 300 juveniles in this flock, and its amazing to see the starling juveniles being fed by the adults really close too, as well as watch the juveniles learn their trade as a starling.

-Juvenile Starling 
Actually on the hill, there were some people from the national grid doing some work on the telegraph poles in the feild at the enterance to the site.
  Actually on the site, there were not too many birds, and not surprise really becuase it was exceptionally hot. So I imagine that they were all resting in the shade somewhere. However, one bird not hiding away were the lapwings, 3 in total, who were busy flying around and displaying. They were great to watch and they came quite close at some times.

-Lapwing
I went up to the top to see if there were any waders on the scarpes, instead I was rewarded by a male wheatear that flew past me. I followed it to one of the walls surrounding the site. I tried to get closer to it, and doing so flushed some unknown partridges. However, the wheatearwas canny and diddnt let me get too close. Instead I opted for a different tactic, to go around the bird and try and get closer from there. It worked as the bird flew down from the wall to nearer to where I was positioned. It still wasnt overly close, but did allow me to get some resonable shots as it strutted its stuff.

-Male Wheatear
Moving furthur across the hill, I spotted a curlew perched on the far side of the top, which is a species I don't think I have ever seen landed at this site before. Unfortunatly it was very flighty, I was still a good 100 meters away from it when it went up and headed off towards the moors.

-Curlew
I headed across to where the curlew had been, to have a look at what was on the main pool of water in the track dividing the hill. There were no waders, but there was a stunning male linnet that stuck around, after the rest of the flock moved to the other side of the pool. My dad says that the linnets we have in our garden have been around recently, but I havent seen them, making this the first linnet of the year.

-Linnet
Moved around the back of the hill on the eastern side to see if there any partridges in the grass thats been planted there. Unfortunatly not, only there were a few skylarks singing around, which was the best on this side of the hill.
  As I readided to leave, one of the lapwings cameand started circling above me really close. I took a few quick photos but realised that i must have upset it, so made a swift get-away to prevent upsetting it furthur.

-Lapwing
So overall a great revision break, but I had to get back to get my nose back to the grindstone

More updates

its all local birding at the moment. Not much has changed, but we had our first starling fledgling on the birdfeeder this morning. It was accompanied by a aprent that fed it constantly, until they left. It shows that we have had some sucess on the starling front already.
  Also spotted a kestrel in the same spot the last two times I wandered to school, one occasion it was hunting, the other time it was jus drifting over.

Catching Up

just a quick note. Walking back from my biology exam today, spotted a few swifts flying below the tree line in bradshaw park, which was great to see because they were so close.
  On the nesting birds on my route, I spotted the collard dove sitting this morning, even though the postman walked right under her. On other nests, I've counted at least 10 starling nest along the route, including some bringing food and removing fecal sacs. As of yet I have seen no house sparrows showing nesting behavior, and the blue tit nest I mentioned I have seen no activity. Also no swallow nests been seen yet, possibly due to the lack of swallows.

Swift

Had my first swift of the year today. After walking down to school and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, Swallows, Greenfinch, I arrived at school and after settling down spotted a swift flying away from us. Its my first this year, and as such was very excited, which drew a few curious glances. sadly when I went out for a better look it had vanished.
  However, that is not the end of this tale, because during my free period, I spotted another 3, or at least another 2, flying towards the school. sadly the views were glimps before they flew over the school, but either way, it was very exciting to see.

Recently

Its been quiet recently due to exam commitments. However, as I have walked to and from school I have spotted quite a few birds displaying nesting habits, as well as finding around 6 nests of various species, inlcuding starling, collard dove and Blue tit. I can clearly see the collard dove nest and watch them easily. Theyare awkwardly perched between a satellite dish and a wall, which makes me wonder if the house owener might push them off. Lets hope not.
  Helping with Ogden Watch Group on saturday, at Cunnery wood, I managed to spot a jay flying between the trees there, as well as there being plenty of bluebells to admire.
  Over the house yesterday we had a pair of kestrels, we think displaying, though when I caught up with them they had moved on a bit. We also had a mining bee, resting on the driveway. I only know it is a mining bee because I have seen one identical to this is the lake district, but it would be nice if it set up home in our garden somewhere.

2 Swallows

So after having my first swallow of the calderdale yearyesterday, I managed to double my count today, with 2 hunting by the Bradshaw Tavern today. They were very mobile, but dissapeared when a crow flew by.

Calderdale swallow

So, its almost May and I finally manage my first swallow of the year in Calderdale. Its been a long time coming, but I finally spotted one whilst walking down to school in the rain. It alighted on a telegraph wire, before hunting across the nearby feild.
  Unfortunatly, today was also the day that somebody had the first swift in calderdale of the year. I seem to be behind the times. Such is the curse of exams.

Bolton Abbey

as it was none rainy day, we decided we would go to bolton abbey for a walk to see if there was anything around. On the first corner coming up-river towards the cafe, there were three mandarin ducks, though only

2 on the water, a third sat with the mallards.

-Mandarin males
Walking through the woods, spotted this rather tame robin, less than a meter away, so I got down to take some photos

-Robin
I got distracted off the path, and found myself looking out of the woods into a feild, where overhead there were a couple of buzzards, and a curlew flying over, which was interesting to see these two completely different birds being so close to each other.

-Buzzard 
On the way back, we got the novelty sight of watching some mallards get covered in scum, looking like they had large white beards or something.

-Mallards 
Walking back towards the car, I went on the loop round the rivers bend to see if I could see the Mandarins again. However, I saw a new bird for the year in the form of red kite. There were quite a few circling above the trees, but they were a way off, so were difficult to identify at first, until I looked at my photos and recognised the distinct forked tail. In the feild they were circling over, there was also a lapwing displaying.

-Red Kite
Walking under the bridge to get back to the car, I spotted the first goosanders of the day. They were on the other side of the river, so my photos are really poor. However, it just gopes to show that they are still there, though theres no reason why they would not be.

-Goosanders
And so we went home, and ended a very exciting day.

Grange-Over sands Holiday day 5

The last day of the holiday. we were sad to leave, but at least it was nice for the last day. Even so, it was still cold, so my hands went numb taking down the orning, and moving the caravan.
We decided to go to Sizergh castle national trust, which seemed like a nice place when we pulled in. What we hadn't realised is that this place has a reasonable population of hawfinches that are, apparently, reliable, but that we were a bit too late for us to have a reasonable chance of seeing them. It did however have a bird feeding station where they had occurred before, so that's the first place I went. Mainly they were supposed to live in the hornbeams at the back of the car park, but only really in the morning, so when we arrived at 11, chances are that we were not going to see one.
At the bird feeding station there were plenty of nice birds. Besides the average garden birds there were a pair of bullfinches and a nuthatch that regularly came down from the trees.

-Female Bullfinch

-Male Bullfinch

-Bullfinch and Nuthatch

-Nuthatch

Other birds nearby included a chiffchaff, that was singing whilst catching insects in a holly tree and the tops of other trees.

-Chiffchaff

Besides the car park, the hawfinches apparently live behind the visitor center, and there were less people there, so that's where I went next. It was difficult looking up into the tall trees with the sun in my eyes, meaning everything was just a black silhouette. However there were other birds more interesting than some potential hawfinches

First on the agenda were a pair of goldfinches that landed around 5 meters from me and started killing each other. They diddnt even seem to notice me as I stood there taking photos, and one eventually won the fighjt by flipping the other oto its back and then pecking its breast until it surrended. They then began to play cat and mouse in the tree tops where I couldnt really see with the camera.

-Goldfinch
I made my way down to the main lake to see if there were any bird down there. There was a coot and a moorhen that i spotted, but on the stairs down I spotted this long-tailed tit carrying nest material. Once again, it was quite bold and diddnt seem to mind that I was just stood there, until it flew into a hedge and then off.

-Long-Tailed Tit

I couldnt find anything in trhe hedge that could possibly be a nest, however, the hedge was blooming so there were a few early insects around, inlcuding this rather handsome tawney coloured bee, of which I have no idea of its I.D

-Bee

I made my way back up to the feeding station to see if anything was there hawfinch wise. It wasnt, but there were some other garden birds that i decided to take photos of, just incase photos of that species were missing from my library should I ever need to use them.

-Greenfinch

-Chaffinch
After there I headed up a nearby lane lined with hornbeams to see if there were any hawfinches up there, but it was not to be.

After lunch I headed back down to the lake to see what was going on down there. It turns out that there were actually too coots, and that they had a nest, and the reason I hadn't seenm the other originally is because it was sat on the nest. The one "on patrol" at the time I was there the second time clearly disliked mallards. This mallard had a torrid time, sleeping peacefully before being chased and violently awoken. It then slept under a low tree, before swimming out again, before being attacked by the other coot and then making a runner.

-Coot Vs Mallard
However, there was a bird species that I missed completely on my original visit, a dabchick. And to rub salt in the wound, there were too. I clearly needed to leave hawfinch world and focus on the other lovely birds around. The dabchicks were really shy and stayed under some plants for most of the time, but at one point were out in the open, so I could het some photos. The coots diddnt seem to mind these as much as the mallard.

-Dab/Little Grebe
And to make sure they dont feel left out, I included a photo of the coot, in one of its calmer moments.

-Coot

And so ends the grnage holiday, which was been really nice, and I have seen lots of really nice things, and it was a perfect way to end it, even though i dipped on hawfinch.

Grange-Over Sands Holiday day 4

After torrential rain yesterday we woke up to a new enemy, The wind! It was horrendous, people were taking down their ornings on the campsite to stop them blowing away. Having said that, there was hardly a cloud in the sky, and those that were quickly moved on, so we decided to go to Arnside. This is a small town on the edge of the bay that last time had an abundance of bold herons as well as cormorants and greater black backed gulls that were butchering flounders.
However, today was not a patch on last time, as most of the birds we saw were on the train journey there. These included plenty of shelducks on the saltmarsh, an abundant bird in these parts that we had so far missed out on during this holiday. However, there were plenty of them today, in two clusters of about 20 each, and then more on the mud.
Driving over the river Kent on the train I spotted some redshanks feeding in the mud, as well as a curlew or two. Arriving in Arnside I headed straight to the beach to look for fossils, of which, over the course of the day, I found many. These included corals and bivalves.
Sadly, I didn't see a single heron, and the one cormorant was flying upstream. The Greater black backed gulls did nothing more than sleep, and the only other birds were the black headed gulls, and the odd pied wagtail.
On the way back from our beach walk, My brother found these sea gooseberries on the beach, which was just about the only thing I took a photo of all day, but were quite interesting.

-Sea Gooseberries
We caught the train back, and were in grange for half 3. We decided to go for a coffee, but on the way we would check in on the blackbird nest to see how they were doing. On the way to the blackbird nest, we passed the bar headed geese feeding quite close to the path, so i bobbed down to take a few photos.

-Bar Headed Goose
At the blackbird nest I was quite surprised to see how much they had grown. They were now covered in protofeathers (if that's the correct term) and seemed really awake and lively. Sadly, once more, I was unable to get any photos of what they looked like due to the entrance to the nest being round the back, so all the chicks were facing that way. However, from my attempt you can see that they had matured from the previous photo. Still unusual to see such well developed chicks this early in the year.

-Blackbird Chicks

Overall, quite a disappointing day on the birdwatching front, but I did find some pretty interesting fossils, as well as being able to catch up on the blackbirds for a last time before we head off home.