Hello again. Flying over the Dearne Valley today were four common cranes. That must have been a great sight to see! John Seeviour tweeted that the fab four drifted high over Bolton Village going towards Adwick wetlands at about 12:45pm. And warden Heather also tweeted her sighting of the cranes. They had just flown southeast over Goldthorpe when she saw them. It's not often that we get to see common cranes in the Dearne Valley so I reckon this was a bit special. If you read the webpage from the RSPB about them then you will read that they are a declining species.
A couple of years ago the New Year Bird Race was in aid of the common crane and if you read this RSPB blog from 2016 then you will see that there is some good news!
I don't have the sightings from the book I'm afraid as I got back from work too late to ring up.
So here is what has been on Twitter today.
Old Moor via Peter Walsh. Thanks Peter.
Wath Ings - a curlew sandpiper, 7 pink footed geese who were most likely flying over, 2 dunlin, 2 blacktailed godwits, 13 ruff, 4 green sandpipers, approx 100 lapwing, 3 golden plover and 5 ringed plover. Peter also reported a pintail seen from the Wader Scrape.
Alan Stonier was at Edderthorpe today and tweeted the following sightings - approx 364 lapwing, 194 golden plover, 4 dunlin, 5 little egrets, 4 ruff, 4 common gulls, 55 lesser black backed gulls, one yellow legged gull in at 12;50pm, a pintail and 7 pink footed geese in and amongst a flock of 314 greylag geese. Thank you Alan.
John Seeviour at Bolton Ings reported sightings of a marsh harrier, 23 golden plover and 3 female goosander.
That's as much as I can find for sightings from the Dearne Valley today. If you know any different, then do please comment below.
To finish today, a photo of a lovely comma butterfly from last weekend.