Pam's Place: Avocet

Showing posts with label Avocet. Show all posts

Thursday, 18 April 2019

Blacktoft Sands

We recently spent a morning a Blacktoft Sands, it wasn't a bad day weather wise, a bit dull and breezy but it's finally getting warmer! There were lots of small birds around the car park - Robins, Wren, Tree Sparrows, Tits etc... and several around the reserve itself, Dunnock, Reed Bunting and we even had a brief burst of song from a Cetti's Warbler.

Wren

Great Tit

Chaffinch

We saw a Marsh Harrier from the reception hide, in fact we saw them from every hide, they were mostly flying over the distant reeds with some coming a little closer, it's certainly the place to go if you want to watch these birds! We spotted Snipe and Ruff around the edges of the water and many Avocet, we counted 27 on one island alone.

Ruff

Snipe

Lots of Black-headed Gulls were on the islands from the Marshland Hide, a few Shovelers, Gadwall and Mallard too

Black-headed Gulls

Bottoms up! Shoveler

Gadwall

Ousefleet is flooded (always amazing to see after seeing it dry with grazing ponies last time we visited) and full of ducks, mostly sleeping Teal but Wigeon, Shoveler, Mallard, Shelduck and more Gadwall too.

Teal

Shoveler

Avocets

Greylag Geese

Elsewhere we saw Canada and Greylag Geese, a Little Egret, a few Sand Martins, a distant pair of Oystercatchers and a lone Butterfly which was gone before I could tell for sure what it was!

A pleasant morning walk and we'll be back later in the year hopefully to see few more Warblers!

Sunday, 2 September 2018

A Day Out

The week after Cleethorpes we headed east again, this time to Blacktoft Sands and then North Cave Wetlands.

At Blacktofts we stopped in the reception first and had a chat with the wardens there. A Wood Wasp was on the window, they are amazing looking wasps and I thought i'd taken a photo but I can't find one!

Wasps had also taken up residence in a large nest by one of the paths so they'd had to arrange a slight detour as the wasps can get a little irate! There is also work going on at the Ousefleet end of the reserve to clear a build up of silt and though it didn't really affect us much.

The difference though with the view from the Ousefleet hide compared to the last time we were here in April is immense, not a drop of water to be seen and the only birds we saw were around half a dozen Yellow Wagtails following the Konick ponies around.

The field by the Ousefleet trail was being plowed as we walked along and there were a lot of Gulls in the area, mostly Black-headed but a few Herring and Lesser Black-backed too. There were a few butterflies along the trail, Small and Large Whites and Speckled Wood, it wasn't the sunniest of days though.

On the lagoons we saw amongst others Avocet, Black-tailed Godwit, Dunlin, Canada Geese, Snipe, Green Sandpiper, Pied Wagtail, Stock Dove and a Cetti's Warbler called briefly too. I didn't take a lot of photos as the birds were distant.

Avocet & Black-tailed Godwit

Pied Wagtail

Headless Ducks......Gadwall

Snipe

Black-tailed Godwits

Green Sandpiper

Black-tailed Godwit

We stopped to have lunch before heading off and this scruffy looking chap decided to join us.

Onto North Cave Wetlands, it's not much of a detour to visit here, we only discovered it about ten or eleven years ago thanks to my Uncle who lived in nearby Gilberdyke. He decided the family weren't seeing enough of each other and arranged a yearly get together, it was for one of these that we discovered the Wetlands, sadly both he and my aunt have passed away now but I always think of them when we visit the wetlands.

It was quiet people wise and had been all day really, we had picked the weekend of the Birdfair so i'm thinking a lot of folk where there instead! There were however birds in abundance including a lot of Greylag Geese everywhere!

We were watching a couple of Blackcaps in the bushes from the Turret hide when a Fox wandered out of the bushes for a minute before disappearing again!

There were a few dragonflies on the paths, they didn't stay still for long but I grabbed a couple of photos.

Common Darter

We also found a beautiful Grasshopper by one of the benches, they always amaze me how intricately detailed they are, I think this is a Meadow Grasshopper.

This fly settle on my husbands hand for a couple of minutes, it's quite a beauty as flies go!

A few more photos from the walk.

Tuesday, 29 May 2018

Old Moor

Despite Friday's late night we were up and off to Old Moor early Saturday morning. A much better day weather wise, back to warm temperatures and sun.

Now apparently the Bitterns are flying around the reserve at the moment, of course not when we were watching, three times we just missed them. We even sat at the Bittern bus stop for half an hour and stilled missed one that flew up briefly after being mobbed by birds......we'd been tracking a small bird, which turned out to be a Reed Bunting, a beautiful bird............but not a Bittern. Oh well.

We did see lots of damselflies and butterflies though including my favourite - the Brimstone.

Blue-tailed Damselfly

Azure Damselfly?

Speckled Wood

Not sure on these two?

And my first ever Dingy Skipper

This Heron was in one of the pools

There are lots of Gulls on the reserve, mostly Black-headed, also Lesser black-backed and Herring. The Gulls were spooked at one point but we were too far away to tell by what.

A couple of Shelduck were asleep

At the Field pool west hide a family thought they had views of a Temminck's Stint, they'd heard at the visitors centre one had been seen but my id skills with waders aren't the best and it was just too distant for good enough views with the binoculars. Luckily a nice chap with a scope came in and he and a second chap who soon followed confirmed it was indeed the Stint and we had a lovely view through the chaps scope! We watched it walk up and down a small strip of sand in the middle of the water, it was only when a Gull landed in the same place you realise just how tiny the birds are.

The Stint is on the tiny strip of sand in the middle of the water!!

We moved on and discovered an exodus happening from the Wader Scrape hide, I think the family had shown the photos they'd got of the Stint and everyone was off for a look. So the hide was very quiet in the end. We managed to find the two Sanderlings that had been seen on yet another strip of sand, they were again too far for my camera but they were there..........

My husband spotted a single Avocet amongst the Gulls.

Moving on to the Field Pool East Hide we sat watching a few Tufted Ducks, Gadwalls, Coots and Swans, with a couple of Lapwing flying around off to the side. A chap sat there commented he thought he had a Black-necked Grebe, we got on it and yes it definitely was, a single one, near the back of the pool. It stayed up that end mixing up with the Tufted Ducks.

This Coot held a bit of a squabble with some of the birds then displayed it's tail feathers at them all!

It was I think past lunchtime by now so we had a picnic near the entrance, a Holly Blue flying around the bushes by us as we ate. We had a great morning and I added two lifers to my list!