Saturday 16 January 2016

15th January

Definitely more wintery now, with a dusting of snow on the Hambletons lit by the late afternoon light...


As was this Fieldfare…


Most of the floods have now receded and the remnant areas were largely frozen...


...but on the small un-iced area in the bottom fields there were still 40 Teal, a dozen Mallard, 200 Black-headed Gulls and a family of Mute Swans.

On Langlands there was just a single Lapwing. I assume it was injured as it's rare not to be in a flock at this time of year. Quite a difference from last week when there was a group of at least 700 birds on here.


Incidentally John, the farmer here, still uses the old Yorkshire name of Tearfit for the Lapwing. Even more impressive was a superb flock of more than 1000 Golden Plover which roosted on the floods last weekend. 

A couple of villagers reported a Peregrine near the school last week. There was one seen in Scruton the week before so possibly a bird hanging around. This might also explain a couple of ‘dreads’ I saw where all the birds on the floods suddenly exploded into the air for no apparent reason.

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