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Welcome to @Yorkshirewild 2024
birdwatching Blog.

Flamborough

14.02.2024 Filed in: Flamborough written by: Steve Farley Flamborough Birding

Birding Flamborough

We were lucky enough to be staying in Flamborough over the bank holiday weekend at the end of April. This in turn meant that when all the crowds had gone we had the cliff-tops to ourselves. I’m not being selfish, Flamborough's North landing can get pretty crowded.

The film below was all shot later in the day when activity amongst the colony is high with most of the birds either feeding or collecting nest material. There is something about North Landing, especially the very quiet area behind the cafe. This, for me is the most stunning part of this area and very few people go there.

Bridlington

Purple Sandpiper
Now for me this really is a very special bird. For many years I have been aware of a small flock of this very hardy bird. Often they hang around with the much bigger and equally robust turnstones. And Turnstones do just that! They turn stones over looking for food, small crustaceans.

The film below was taken early evening in the lower part of Bridlington old harbour. It shows the Turnstones in the foreground and the smaller Purple Sandpipers in the background. Also below is the sound recording of individual Purple Sandpipers.

The Turnstones are the larger more mottled birds and the Purple Sandpipers are smaller with a grey head. The name comes from the fact they are from the species Sandpiper but also they have a Purple colouring as adult birds in good light.

Sound of Purple Sandpiper

Above: Some of the many thousands of Gannets returning in the evening.

Above: Northern Fulmar.

Above: Kittiwake collecting mud and grass as nesting material.

Tags: Northern Pintail,Purple Sandpiper

It's a Night Heron

14.02.2024 Filed in: Ossett written by: Steve Farley

I use an alert system which is countrywide to alert me to birds that are locally or nationally scarce or rare. If they are very rare, they are called Mega's. For these birds below, there was and still is at the time of writing this a pair in Ossett West Yorkshire. This is nothing short of a miracle.

The Species is Nycticorax (Latin Name) the bird looks a little grey but is in fact very white with slightly skin tone ish legs. It was fascinating to watch it feeding.

It's a Megga

Ossett, West Yorkshire is not the place you would expect a pair of Black Crowned Night Heron to turn up in the middle of the night.

Birds, even very rare ones can turn up just about anywhere. This pair can't be fussy as they have made a temporary home among all the plastic rubbish and detritus on the river Calder. This was the first time iv'e been to this part of the river and I found it strangely beautiful. You can't help but notice the rubbish though, many tons of it on both banks. To see the bird was a quarter of a mile walk and a climb over a water tank trailer someone has deliberately put in the way of the path. This is presumably to deter walkers, how strange.

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MY FLICKR PAGE

Tags: Night Heron

Wykeham Forest

14.02.2024 Crossbill

Crossbill can be really hard to find! Famous last words, Some years none and others quite plentiful, North Yorkshire, especially Wykeham Forest can be a bit of a hot spot.

It's a Sunday morning in February. Some photographers have been posting images of Crossbill in both North Yorkshire and Middleton in Teesdale, a good sign you may think, but dead certs are rarely that in the birding world. We went to Wykeham Forest raptor watchpoint and although we could hear crossbill it was some hours before we got a view, plenty of Buzzard and Goshawk though, too distant to photograph,

After a couple of hours we decided to leave the car and walk through the forest towards another viewpoint deep in the forest. As we approach the well-known car park, we could hear crossbills chattering above us. After a few minutes we got our eye in and started to see well camouflaged birds above our heads, very high in the trees. Don't judge the photograph too harshly, I was having a bad day with the camera.

Crossbill are really well camouflaged among the pinecones and Pine needle branches. As I explained above, sometimes they are much easier to identify by sound.

I spent most of last year rebuilding my business, making sure we stayed afloat and ensuring everyone's future was safe. This impacted greatly on my birding activity. I make no apologies for this, I did what I had to do, I do hope you missed me!

Attenborough Nature Reserve

14.02.2024 Filed in: Attenborough Nature written by: Steve Farley

I really hope 2023 is much better for us all, much better for wildlife and much better for birds and birding. 2022 wasn't a bad year, in fact, it was quite a good one, more people seemed gentler, more in tune with nature, people spent more time outside, noticing more and intern "kinder".

Common Birds but plenty of joy.

I have never seen a nature reserve as busy as Nottingham's Attenborough nature reserve and visitor centre. People are desperate for the freedom that being outdoors brings. There were hundreds and hundreds of people with children and dogs all enjoying this vast open space.