Still Easterlies

So on standby for lots of megas turning up on the coast but no such luck so up to the Humber Bridge instead!  After yesterday's Skuas there could still be some around today couldn't there, well no not one but we did have at least 7 juvenile Gannets, 2 Guillemots and 100+ Wigeon.  

The day started particularly well for Wayne as he had a Muntjac from the kitchen window this morning only the second record in 15 years!

Sea bird bonanza at Alkborough Flats!

A slight exaggeration but what a day, with deck chairs and rug for pain relief! we perched up on the hillside protected from the easterly wind and in full sunshine where we watched for 7 hours.  Thousands of Pink Footed Geese spent the day commuting between their feeding grounds and the roost site of Whitton Sands and whilst watching and listening to this spectacular sight along with the antics of a juvenile Peregrine we noticed a disturbed group of gulls and quickly picked up the culprit, a Bonxie.  The sighting of this and news of other seabirds at the Humber Bridge made us focus more on the river and several hours later we had logged a pale morph juvenile Long-tailed Skua and two dark morph juvenile Arctic Skuas, all three skuas seen together giving good comparison on structure and size of the two species.  To finish off two juvenile Gannets made their way up the Humber turned left down the Trent and disappeared from view over Blacktoft Sands.

After thoughts of summer

I'm writing this whilst led on the back seat of the car parked outside the Blue Bell cafe at Spurn Point and thinking to myself those painkillers didn't last long and I suppose that sums up my summer and indeed the last 10 months of life with sciatica.  However every cloud has a silver lining and my affliction has meant I have spent most of my time in the garden at home watching the bees and trying to identify them and this led me to discover a new species for the garden and indeed myself and that was the Tree Bumblebee.  I had two Tree Bumblebees which arrived when the Bistort started to flower and disappeared when the Bistort finished.  These wonderful little bees were new to the UK in 2001 and were it not for my sciatica I would probably never had noticed them. I wondered if my bees were the most northerly in Britain but I have just seen two more in the autumn sunshine next to the gas works at Easington!

Noticeable by their absence would have to be Hornets and Ladybirds but pond life had been prolific in the garden with the Newts being the star attraction and a drinking male Crossbill putting in a surprise visit.  In Normanby Park the greatest moment for me was when the Spotted Flycatchers rebuilt their nest having had the first destroyed and the second highlight was the huge numbers of Bumblebees feeding on the Lavender hedges and well done to the park in their last autumns clearing of leaves which to me seems to have had a good outcome in reducing the devastation caused by the Horsechestnut leaf miner this summer.  The park has also had a brilliant success with regards to its Bats with a total of 8 species recorded.

So what have we seen today - well not much considering easterly winds but even so we managed 2 Yellow-browsed Warblers, 2 Garden Warblers, 1 Whinchat, 1 Firecrest and our first Redwings but tomorrow with slightly stronger winds forecast who knows what will turn up ..... And finally one last photo of the summer which sums it up and I promise no more bee photos till next spring

Great Snipe's epic flights

An interesting article....

Great Snipe flight

Great Snipe at Kilnsea, Spurn Point

At long last a new blog post, having been grounded for so long with my sciatica I wasn’t going to let my first British Great Snipe succumb to my affliction so with painkillers at hand here it is, and what a bird showing down to four feet at one point…