As well as many other visitors, Old Moor welcomed seventeen members of Haxby and Wigginton U3A Bird Group today. By all accounts they had a great day and, between them, clocked up an impressive list of sixty bird species! Top birding folks!
Here’s a summary of what was seen out there today…
Even for Old Moor, that’s an impressive list and today was indeed a special one. Not only has the autumn bird migration begun in earnest, but it was also a day when not one, but three species of tern could be found on the reserve.
Early this morning a sandwich tern was reported and this was followed closely by an account of an arctic tern. Later, two black terns could be seen feeding on the Mere. As one wag put it, “One good tern deserves two others”.
If only the sun had shone! Two black terns on the Mere today.
But that wasn’t all. A close inspection of the Wader Scrape and later, an island to the right of Wath Ings hide, revealed a female wheatear: another very welcome surprise of the day.
A female wheatear on the scrape this afternoon
Wader numbers were building nicely today and there were plenty of black-tailed godwit, green sandpiper, greenshank and snipe around the reserve.
Those recent spotted redshank could still be found at first on Wath Ings and then on the Mere. In the same area of the Mere, a ringed plover was joined by two little ringed plover alongside the more familiar cast of characters that included: great crested and little grebes; little egret; shelduck and silver teal.
Some great views of snipe today
Bittern and kingfisher were seen today too as were hobby, buzzard and kestrel. Yet it was those terns that really stole the show. So, to finish tonight’s blog, here’s another poor photo of some truly remarkable birds: two spotted redshank on the left of the rock, one black tern on the right.
Until next time.