In the garden this summer

Considering the miserable summer weather we have had it has been a great year for butterflies.  Our Buddleia has been coated in Painted Ladies, Small White, Tortoiseshell, Red Admiral, Meadow Browns, Gate Keepers, Peacocks, Commas and  one very welcome Grayling.  The caterpillar below is a Elephant Hawk Moth which I nearly stood on outside my back door!

 Bird wise the season has been quiet in the garden however we did have a Peregrine shoot across yesterday just above our roof and caused havoc amongst our resident Jackdaws.  We also have at the moment one very ill looking male Bullfinch which visits daily to feed on the honey suckle berries - although his feathers look very worn he appears to have a disease rather than summer moulting as he also seems to have very sticky eyes - I fear the end is near for him.

August WeBs count - record counts

For the last 20 or so years Wayne has undertaken monthly WeBs counts http://www.bto.org/webs/about/core/(wetland bird surveys) on the Humber Estuary for the BTO -  the area he covers is from Winteringham to South Ferriby on the south bank.   Today was the designated August count day and the usual post breeding flock of Avocet along with Dunlin, Curlew, Redshank, Ringed Plover and Shelduck were found around Reads Island.  Interestingly there were record numbers of Avocet and Shelduck present with 1089 of the former and 1551 of the latter.  Hidden in amongst the vast numbers of Shelduck were 2 Ruddy Shelduck.

Collared Pratincole in Lincolnshire

Just got back from Frampton Marsh where luckilly yesterdays Collared Pratincole reappeared.  We had great views of it both flying and on the ground.  Here are some trully awful digiscoped photos.

Spurn Point - Long-toed Stint?

We decided to visit a new RSPB reserve down in the wash today, Frampton Marsh but wouldn't you know it the bird pager went off just as we were setting off - a possible Long-toed Stint had been seen last night and again first thing this morning at Patrington Haven so off we went.  By the time we reached Patrington we had missed high tide so we carried on to Spurn Point  with plans to go back to Patrington at the next high tide at about 7.30.  So we decided to look for the juvenile Marsh Warbler down Beacon Lane which had been seen yesterday - after about an hour of looking we finally found the bird, surprisingly this was a lifer for me so I was happy.  To cut a long story short we saw the stint or a stint which turned out to be a Little Stint not a Long-toed Stint and to add insult to injury for Wayne at the same time it came through on the pager that a Collared Pratincole was at Frampton Marsh a new Lincolnshire 'tick' for us.  We had a lovely day at Spurn though with thousands of waders and dozens of terns and 3 Emperor Dragonflies - I wonder though where we will be tomorrow.

Alkborough Flats - Peregrines and Egrets

This is one of the young Peregrines we have been watching down on the flats for a while now - we have seen 2 maybe 3 juveniles one being fed by an adult.  I would like to say that I took these photos(2nd photo Little Egret, 3rd photo snipe) but I didn't I have never managed to get any thing like these image sizes with my little canon  ixus but my brother (Shadoxhurst Nick) managed these on a quick visit on Sunday morning, Nick uses a SonyA700 with a Tamron 200-500 lens - thankfully he's now back in Kent!  

Evening at Alkborough

Had the most wonderful evening at Alkborough yesterday - the weather during the day had been wet and very breezy but the evening was still, so as the author of The Shadoxhurst Garden (aka as Nick my brother) is visiting we decided on a late visit.  The light was fading as we  arrived at 7.30 but it seemed to make the sites and sounds even more special.
From the hide we had two fly bys from a Barn Owl, a Spoonbill, 23 Ruff, 1 Hobby, 1 Greenshank, 2 Greensand Pipers, 1 Snipe, 40+ Black-tailed Godwits and 10 roosting Little Egrets.
Snipe

Barn Owl
Wayne

The Yorkshire Dales

I have travelled around the world a fair bit but for me no where equals the outstanding natural beauty of the Yorkshire Dales.  The limestone hills and pastoral valleys are sandwiched between the Lake District to the west and the North York Moors to the east.  We have just spent a couple of days in my favourite of all the dales Swaledale but also ventured in to Wensleydale and the beautiful Mallerstang valley.Wensleydale is probably best known these days for its cheese and in particular for its connection with Wallace and Gromit - it is the largest and most serene of the dales whilst Swaledale to me is more dramatic and more remote with picturesque little villages linked by footpaths all the way down the valley to Reeth.
Mallerstang
Catrake Force
The Butter Tubs - deeply eroded natural wells
Swaledale with its profusion of field barns for which the dale is renowned



Hardraw Force - the highest above ground waterfall in England


Gayle

Gulls - Ancholme Valley

Went to see Graham's gulls today (aka Peewit) - we dipped on the Caspian Gull but had 2 Yellow Legged Gulls and 6 Meditteranean Gulls.  Whilst there we also had 13 Crossbills fly over.

Pectoral Sandpiper at Alkborough

A good birding day today, with 2 Ruddy Shelduck on Read's Island and a nice adult Pectoral Sandpiper down on the flats.  No shots of the Shelducks as they were miles away!

 

Local Round-up

Well, Wimbledon has ended for another year and yet another year without a Brit in sight of a final but at least we can get out again and here's what we saw;

5th July - Sunday

Burton Gravel Pits - at last a singing Turtle Dove, what a disaster this species is having in our area - the only one we know of but at least that's one better than Spotted Flycatcher!

Alkborough Flats - 2 Spoonbill, 2 Little Egret, 7 Greenshank, 3 Ruff, 2 Spotted Redshank, 1 Barn Owl, 219 Black Tailed Godwits

Messingham Sand Quarries - 240 fledged Black Headed Gulls, 2 adult and 2 juvenile Marsh Harrier, Kingfishers taking in fish to nest site, Avocet with juveniles

Laughton Forest - 1 Tree Pipit, 2 Woodcock and up to 6 singing Nightjars on one stretch of track

Normanby Park - 3 male Black Tailed Skimmers and dozens of Common Blue Damselflies

Bee Boxes and Wood Peckers

I have been slightly inactive for the past week mainly due to Wimbledon and Glastonbury however when schedules allowed I have been in the garden enjoying some very close encounters courtesy of the destructive behavior of a young Great Spotted Woodpecker.

It all started when I caught this young pecker systematically taking every grub out of the bee box which  had been diligently laid and sealed up over the past month by either mining bees or leaf cutter bees (I'm not sure which).  Every chamber had been used but in the space of minutes each one had been broken into and the grub taken so in an attempt to divert the bird away from the box and give the bees a second chance I filled up all the peanut feeders.  The feeders are only about six foot away from my garden bench and have been quickly found by a family of nine Great Tits and the young Wood Pecker.  They don't seem to mind me sitting so close and I have had the most marvellous views with the young Great Tits even joining me on the bench.  A near disaster though this evening when one of the young Great Tits flew into the patio window, we picked it up stunned and it took it a good ten minutes to come round and fly off.

You can see just one chamber complete but a bee is back sealing up second from the right top row!

More from the Alps

We have been back nearly a week now and I'm still thinking about the flowers, the scenery and the bakers!  Three more shots below of Mont Blanc all taken under different light conditions, the image changed throughout the day.  The rodents are Marmots which played hide and seek in their burrow system and whistled to each other and I couldn't resist another Elder Flower Orchid shot.  You may have noticed that I haven't posted any bird photos and to be honest that's because we didn't take many!   The main group of birds seen were raptors namely Common Buzzards, Honey Buzzards, Black Kites, Hobby, Peregrine and the Lammergeiers all fairly distant so no photos.  In the chalet garden were a family of Black Redstarts, White Wagtails, brief visits of Serin and Common Redstart all of which were impossible to get near so no photos but one bird which was only too happy to be pictured sharing our picnics were A....... C....... wait and see if you can guess!

 Alpine Choughs - did you guess right? NB the bottom one is colour ringed