Well the Beast from the East hasn’t arrived yet and it’s
been a glorious weekend weather-wise, only the birds have disappointed. I didn’t
add a single bird to the year list this weekend (and only four so far in
February). If you took out corvids, tits and Woodpigeons I saw virtually
nothing. I didn’t even see a single winter thrush (although there was a flock
of around 400 Fieldfares in the paddocks around Yafforth church yesterday). It’s
not really even lack of habitat it’s just a general, and worrying, dearth of birds.
The bright weather did get the birds singing though,
including this Reed Bunting in the Magic Garden…
This morning I headed over to the north of Ainderby. I don’t
walk this way that often because of the rather bleak open fields here but there
are some patches of nicer habitat including a thin strip of the nearest we get
to woodland in the village. A Treecreeper, a Great-spotted Woodpecker and a
small group of Long-tailed Tits were the best of slim pickings there…
Around 20 Tree Sparrows were around the waterworks…
A flock of 30 Lapwings, a pair of Buzzards and a Kestrel were
near the Christmas trees…
...and, as I checked out a Common Gull flying over, I picked
out another five Buzzards drifting over very high up. I wouldn’t have seen them
if I hadn’t been looking at that precise spot. It’s probably a good lesson in
keeping your eyes skywards.
This part of the parish seems to be good for birds of prey moving over (including a ‘kettle’ of 20 Buzzards last year). I don’t know whether it’s
just coincidence or if it’s because the open fields generate more lift or perhaps
it’s a shortcut between the Wiske and Swale?
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