If you were out and about today, you probably felt it. Something had changed. The first clue was that fewer people were wearing jackets. The second was the bird song. So many singers were broadcasting their intentions; that winter was finally vanquished; and that the season of new life had begun in earnest.
That super, yellow-browed warbler at Wombwell Ings
On Manvers Lake today were two mute swan, four great crested grebe, two little grebe and thirty tufted duck.
At Adwick Washland there were two ringed plover, ten redshank, four shelduck, eight snipe, one pink-footed goose, one white-fronted goose, eight grey heron, two little egret, eighteen common gull, 126 lapwing, two golden plover, seven buzzard and nine grey partridge. And that’s not to mention the numbers of mallard, shoveler, gadwall, wigeon, teal and tufted duck. A remarkable place indeed!
Edderthorpe produced sightings of: six shelduck, nine goosander, two little egret, one ringed plover and a curlew.
Meanwhile at Broomhill Flash there were two goldeneye, one buzzard, one pink-footed goose and a hawfinch of course.
And at Wombwell Ings there were one firecrest, one yellow-browed warbler, two chiffchaff, five (or more) goldcrest, four whooper swan, three grey partridge, meadow pipits, skylark, one green woodpecker and a pair of stonechat.
A drake pintail on the Field Pool
My sightings from Old Moor begin with a fieldfare in the car park and, just over the hedge, two yellowhammer in the Tree Sparrow Farm.
On the Reedbed Trail there were kestrel, jay and a female bittern. The latter was seen in flight this morning over reedbed one (the one to the left of the Screen).
On the Mere today were: two Mediterranean gull, one green sandpiper, four oystercatcher, 1200 black-headed gull, two goldeneye, three herring gull, two lesser black-backed gull, a kingfisher and nine cormorant.
Those two Med. gulls deserve a few more words of explanation. Both male, the first was the familiar bird that we’ve seen many times over the last years – silver ringed with a gap in the feathers of his left wing. The second was a newcomer with fewer stray white feathers ‘in the hood’. Both were seen displaying but were also keeping apart from each other, using the bank at the back of the Mere or island one as ‘bases’.
One of the Med. gulls out there today…
Just beside the Family Hide, the small reedbed there was one of the two places to see bearded tits today. Here a male beardie called repeatedly from the reeds before providing a series of display flights, flying and calling back and forth across the front the reedbed. At the other end of Green Lane, beside Field Pool East hide, a pair of beardies were also seen exploring the reeds today.
A handsome male bearded tit as seen from the platform opposite the Family Hide
On the Field Pool today there were: two redshank, two green sandpiper, one kingfisher, thirty lapwing, twenty-four shoveler, 107 wigeon, two pintail (one female) and sixty-five teal.
On the Wader Scrape were three goosander. Another could be found on Wath Ings where there were also five goldeneye (two female) and one snipe.
Sadly, that’s all I have for this evening. I shall finish up with a snap of a bit of unusual kestrel behaviour that I saw today. Hobbies famously eat on the wing but kestrel?
Until next time