We glimpse a large brownish bird swooping up into the branches at the edge of a small wood in the Smithy Brook valley. It can’t be a grey partridge as they wouldn’t perch so high in a tree and it wasn’t small enough to be a mistle thrush.
As we walk on there’s a commotion; a buzzard is circling, gaining height and it’s in dispute with two much smaller birds of prey. They both look like sparrowhawks. 
One flies off down the valley the other returns to the wood while the buzzard heads off up the valley, presumably happy that it has shown them who is boss.
Category: Birds
Grey Wagtails
Grey wagtails are flitting about collecting insect food below the Figure of Three locks where an overflow channel stirs up the still waters of the canal.
The bank behind is steep and covered with brambles and there are no midstream rocks to perch on so their technique involves at lot of hovering over the water surface.
Grey wagtails nest in rock crevices so the centuries old stonework offers plenty of possibilities for nest sites.
Private Fishing
Horbury Bridge, May Day Bank Holiday Monday, 9.30 a.m.; a heron gets up from the edge of the old weir and flies downstream. The sober grey livery, black wing-tips and ‘wing light’ white patches on the leading edge of the wings give it the appearance of an RAF transport plane. The ‘black goggles’ eye-stripe makes it look determined. Will it fly over the bridge or under the arch?
It veers towards the arch on the Horbury side and disappears beneath. Then we realise why; a cormorant appears and flies off up the river. The pool below the weir is evidently private fishing.
Looking down on the action from such close quarters, we get a better view of a cormorant than any we had in Scarborough last week.
Heron and cormorant were birds from another world in my school days; spectacular images in the Observer’s Book of Birds in romantic, rugged settings.
Woodpecker
12 noon, Peasholm Park, Scarborough; We can hear the tapping and see the odd bit of bark dropping down but at first all we can see in the tree canopy is a wood pigeon preening in the branches above. After a minute or so we see a female great spotted woodpecker working her way up the multiple trunks of the adjacent tree.
Once again my monocular comes in handy because through it we can see that in the morning sun the red of her vent shows up well as she hangs almost upside down, pecking on the overhanging trunk. There is no red on the back of her head, which is how we can tell that she’s a female.
North Bay
It was a calm morning but there must have been quite a swell because the waves at North Bay were crashing against the sea wall.
Hangdog Commuter
Despite having spent a day in Scarborough, this terrier looked distinctly hangdog as she commuted to Malton on the Scarborough/York/Liverpool coast to coast train.
A Peregrine amongst the Kittiwakes
Marine Drive, Scarborough, 11.50 a.m.; Thirty kittiwakes set off towards the sea from the Castle cliff, then we see what set them up; a peregrine flies along at mid-ledge level then arcs out above our heads, loops over the sea and returns to the cliff. I’m ready to watch it hunt but it soon settles on a commanding knoll on the cliff-face, which could be a potential nest-site.
Through the little monocular that I keep in my art bag, I can see that it’s a slate grey male. It sits there, facing the cliff with its back to us, calling for ten minutes; a plaintive mewing. Is it hoping to attract a mate or complaining that the restless kittiwakes are hard to surprise this morning?
A kittiwake chases a fulmar, constantly gaining height then swooping on it. Resembling a miniature albatross, the fulmar might win the prizes when it comes to effortless
gliding but the kittiwake is more aerobatic.
A turnstone is doing just what its name suggests; turning over pebbles as the tide ebbs in the harbour. I’ve drawn it as all brown here but there are white patches on its head.
Turnstones peck for scraps around your feet on the quayside, behaviour that seems surprising for a wader.
Peasholm Park
Chiff-chaffs are singing in the wooded valley in Peasholm Park. The pagoda island is awash with pale yellow primroses.
11.50 a.m.; a juvenile herring gull has a yellow plastic ring no. 5B6B on its left leg and on its right a metal BTO ring. It’s one of a group of juvenile gulls attracted to food offered by visitors to the park. In the town, gulls swooping to pinch sandwiches and chips from tourists are seen as a nuisance by some locals.
I draw the Mexican style entrance to MAP (Military Adventure Park) from our table at the Peaches and Cream cafe, North Bay.
House Martins
Just back from Africa, the first house martin appeared today,
swooping up to the apex of the gable end of a house across the road. We’re setting off for our first little break since my mum passed away, heading off for a couple of nights in Scarborough.
There are drifts of wood anemones in the woods as the train approach Malton and, along the woodland edge, the fresh green of dogs mercury.
A hare lollops across an open field in the Vale of Pickering.
Sandy hillocks on the approach to Scarborough are yellow with gorse.
Haze obscures the horizon so this trawler looms just beyond the entrance to the harbour as if its free of the laws of perspective, like a boat on a diorama.
Its cool down by the Spa but on the south-facing slope below the castle, where I draw alexanders, we’re bathed in Mediterranean heat.
Starlings
It’s good to see starlings making a comeback. Once ubiquitous, they haven’t been much in evidence in recent years but most mornings a few of them gather on the rooftops across the road. Sparrows should have a good year too to judge by how many times I’ve seen a pair of them mating. They 
always perch on the gutter on the corner of the house diagonally opposite us. Perhaps this is the best spot if you want to avoid a stealth attack from a sparrowhawk.
Powdery Pigeon
A wood pigeon flies in to perch on a branch of the ivy-covered ash. A few seconds later there a puff of ‘smoke’ two or three feet across which drifts off to the right.
When I remember the powdery silhouettes that wood pigeons make when they fly into our patio windows, the most likely explanation is that it this was part of preening routine. Side-lit by the 
midday sun, the powdery wisp showed up against the dark background of the ivy.
This happened again a couple of times over the next few minutes.
Song Post
The blackbird that I heard practicing its phrases in the dawn chorus mid-March has added grace notes and decorations to its basic song. At lunchtime today he was giving a burst of song from a perch on top of the telegraph pole next door.
Sparrowhawk in the Fir Tree
A sparrowhawk swoops down across my mum’s leafy back garden and perches in a tall fir, its head hidden amongst the branches as I draw it. In a neighbouring garden the tall lime trees have yet to start springing into leaf.