Redshank, black-tailed godwit and a flock of several hundred golden plovers at RSPB Saltholme.
We took a break at the reserve on our return journey from Northumberland too, when we also saw dunlin and marsh harrier.
Shovellers at Saltholme
Category: Birds
Kestrels
A kestrel hovers over a rough marshy field by the canal at Calder Grove.
It swoops off low across the field and meets a second kestrel in a brief aerial skirmish.
The two rest for a while, perching on power-line cables.
Then there’s a second set-too and a chase away through a gap in the trees.
One bird, presumably the victor in this dispute, stops to perch further along the power line while the other disappears towards the British Oak viaduct.
The Grebe in Winter
Many birders these days go to the trouble of carrying a DSLR with a long lens to record any mystery bird. I’ve always got my iPhone with me but it’s not much good for birds any distance away so I’ll try to make some quick field notes, as I did with this winter plumage great crested grebe a few years ago.
The Victorian naturalists were meticulous with their records but the ultimate proof of identity for them was to shoot the bird itself. That was the fate of this winter-plumage great crested grebe which turned up at Bretton Lakes.
Mr Wilkinson, a painter and decorator for the Bretton Hall estate, who presented it to me in 1964, explained that the bird had turned up and no one knew what it was, so they shot it. There’s no label on the case, so I don’t know the date. Presumably late Victorian or Edwardian.
Some Pheasant, Some Neck!
11.15 a.m., drizzly and overcast: A male sparrowhawk swoops close to the bird feeders and lands on the hedge. Pheasant wouldn’t normally be on the menu for him but that doesn’t stop him looking down on two hen pheasants that have been foraging beneath the feeders.
Just in case he’s considering them as his brunch, they extend their necks and puff out their feathers to appear two to three times their regular neck size.
They strut and hop, half spreading their wings and fanning tail feathers, a hip-hop swagger that reminds me of prairie-chickens lekking.
Nestbox Clear-out
As I trim the dripping hawthorn and holly, the misty droplets in the morning air gradually build into soft rain. A robin hops around me as I work.
The sparrow terrace nestbox gets its first ever clear-out. I’m surprised that the far compartment of the three-hole box is almost empty as this was always the one favoured by sparrow, blue tit and bumble bees. The middle box contains the remains of a nest although I don’t remember it ever having been used.
Clearing it out, I evict a tiny moth, several small green caterpillars and, below the surface layer of moss, hundreds of sticky, silky cocoons, perhaps those of bee moths.
Song Thrush on Sumac
The berries on next door’s stagshorn sumac have been attracting a pair of blackbirds. This afternoon, a song thrush came to feed on a cluster of berries in the upper branches.
Buzzard
4.15 p.m.: A buzzard flies up from the ash at the edge of the wood. In the 1980s we never saw buzzards here and the ash was a regular lookout post of a kestrel, a bird of prey we rarely see in recent years.
Yorkshire Bird Song
How to Recognise Yorkshire Bird Calls. Happy birthday Olivia for yesterday.
Penguin Dance
I’ve often seen great-crested grebes go through their head-shaking, ritualised preening display, but at last this morning at RSPB St Aidan’s, we got to see the presentation of beakfuls of water-weed and the penguin dance where the male and female rise from the water, breast to breast, paddling furiously and swaying heads. They appeared to drop the weed as they started this routine. They then returned to head-bobbing display.
We’ve yet to see the ‘ghostly penguin’ and the ‘cat display’ which apparently start off the whole routine.
Canada Goose
This morning a skein of 60 or 70 wild grey geese went over, heading west. Our local Canada Geese meanwhile had gathered on a shingle bank on the quiet inner bend of the meander of the River Calder around the marshy field known as the Wyke.
This is my final spread for my Naturalist Animal Illustration with Procreate Domestika course by Román García Mora, drawn on the iPad in Procreate.
Tawny Owl Feather
A primary feather from the right wing of a tawny owl, which I picked up on thee lakeside path at Newmillerdam in the summer.
Canada Goose Plumage
Canada goose plumage swatches, drawn on the iPad in Procreate for my Naturalist Animal Illustration with Procreate Domestika course by Román García Mora.