Well happy new year to everyone and lets hope 2019 is a good a year as the last here on the Sands, I decided to have a bit of a blogging rest over the Christmas period and instead get myself out into the country air and go and find some nice wildlife and birds around the local area! So here's a summary of what was seen over the Christmas break and a bit of information on what work we have already started for the new year.
Amazingly its still relatively mild which means the lagoons although shallow are still holding a few ducks, the odd wader and the occasional little egret, also watch out for water rails that are quite active at the moment especially around the borrow ditch as you walk onto the reserve. This morning there were shoveller, gadwall, teal, shelduck, mallard and a few wigeon, as well as the odd redshank, a few snipe and lapwing plus a small number of golden plover flying over. Interestingly over the Christmas period there was up to 118 curlew at their usual pre-roost gathering on Ousefleet, a new record count for this part of the reserve! There has also been a few gooseander flying up river over the Christmas period with a peak of three
Wigeon are now grazing on the grass - Marshland
Some of the curlews out on Ousefleet at dusk, the video from Mike has some great evocative curlew sounds
Snipe, mallard and teal on Xerox - Mike P
There are varying numbers of marsh harriers attending the roost at the moment with a maximum of 24 last week, there is also regular buzzard, merlin with one chasing a skylark this morning, sparrowhawk, kestrel and interestingly Mike had four red kites together on news years day, another reserve record count.
Red Kites - Mike Pilsworth - enlarge to see them clearly!
There's been a good number of pink-footed geese around the area this Christmas which is unusual for us with over 4000 over the reserve early this morning, what has been a particularly interesting bird has been one with a neck collar which was ringed in Norway and then re-sighted in Denmark and Belgium indicating that it may possibly be from the Svarlbard population. First sighted by Tom Lowe who monitors the geese for the wind farms it has been seen recently out on the arable, the Svalbard population usually winter in Holland and as far as I know there has never been one recorded in the local area, here's a picture of it taken by Mike P.
Neck collard pink - the bird is at the front middle right
In terms of the smaller birds its the water pipits that continue to perform with good numbers still around site and at least a couple regularly using the lagoons particularly Townend. Not always an easy species to see unless you are involved with the reed cutting work I reckon this winter has been the best ever for getting good views from the hides.
Water pipit blending in with the vegetation on Townend lagoon Island
Other noteworthy birds have been stonechats, up to four bullfinch, redpoll, and a siskin that was feeding on the feeder alongside up to 66 tree sparrows, while the hedges have held a few lingering thrushes including 50+ fieldfare, blackbirds and song thrushes but it seems all the redwings have moved off. Plenty of cettis warblers though still calling from around the reedbed, it seems this species is just going to increase and increase if the winters stay mild here on the Humber.
This bullfinch seems to be showing a bit of aggression to this redpoll who's suddenly tagged along with it!
The stock doves are still hanging around the barn owl box at Ousefleet
And it seems plenty of tree spuggies have returned to sight recently - I suspect because we've increased the grain in the feed mix
There are a few bearded tits calling from around the reed fringes of the lagoons and if it turns cold these may decide to put on a show for visitors, but yesterday I started my usual winter survey of the species with a walk around part of the reedbed. As suspected they were not easy to find with the relatively mild weather and millions of reed panicles (seed heads). But eventually I found a small flock of 15 - 20 birds quietly feeding, we shall have to see how many we find but from earlier counts by colleagues it seems plausible that there is about 250 birds wintering. We just need a bit of frost or light snow but maybe I should be careful for what I wish for!
Here's a few pictures of them feeding - not easy to get shots in the dense areas of reedbed but they do give a nice natural scene
A female
Male taking seed
This puffed out female seems to have lost her tail!
While this one seems like she's gently wrapped in reed frond
As is this male
And a final closer view
What was interesting while I was out in the wilderness of the reedbed was another (or the same bird as earlier in the year?) Siberian chiffchaff giving out its distinctive peep. Interesting that Mike also found one near to the waterways museum in Goole last week with plenty of birds also being found around the country giving rise to the question just how many of these Sibe chiffy's are they this winter? Why so many when it wasn't a big year for yellow-browed warblers and have the same conditions being responsible for the recent spate of winter dusky warblers?
Mikes Sibe Chiffy at the Waterways museum video
The good run of mammal sightings continue with the return of stoat today and over Christmas, hare, plenty of roe deer, weasel and of course the otter. Someone on facebook said that they didn't know we had otter, well although secretive they are in fact now fairly common around the Humber!
There was a bit more fungi too although its drying up with the return of dry weather although it was good to see yet more on Horseshoe meadow.
This weird thing is I think a slime mould and was alongside the reserve, it looks quite revolting but I'm sure someone loves them!
And I found these three lovely fibre caps while working yesterday - in fact clearing Christmas rubbish from the side of one of our reserves, and plenty of it there was but no surprise there as we have already probably removed 20 bin bags full over the last two years.
As I said I got out and about this Christmas with some nice highlights, one of which was a fungus called a collard earthstar out on Thorne moor, not particularly rare but a nice an unusual kind of fungi that has a bit of comedy value in this stage
And how about this teal that we found out at Tophill Low - you never know what you're going to find! A nice blue-winged teal?
Happy New Year to you too Pete, and all of the staff at Blacktoft Sands.
Great video of the curlew from Mike and fantastic to see so many of these endangered birds in one place. There were huge flocks of lapwings coming up the river, seen at dusk on New Year's Day from Faxfleet. I thought it was they murmurations of starlings until they came closer. I gather that the collective noun for them is a "desert"!
Looking forward to more excellent blogs in 2019!