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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Yorkshire Birding (13 Viewers)

Decorating taking priority over getting out and about, still hoping to catch up with some swans tomorrow, thanks all who have posted info.

I did see the ring billed gull at mirfield today. I think it was my 6th attempt!
 
Hornsea Mere

Had a nice (but very cold) morning at Hornsea mere today.
The Iceland gull showed very well around noon after being quite distant sat on ice for most of the morning.
Also flock of bean geese over.
I had gone before the probable ring billed gull was reported.
More shots on the blog.
 

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My missus took great delight in informing me mid morning of the large numbers of redwing in the oak tree in our garden. As I was at work at the time I was less than amused.
 
Hope they return for you keith! I had field fare in our car park this morning which is a first and very obliging for photos! Also had a barn owl last night very close to home.
 
Owltastic day!!!

First a Little Owl down to 6 ft at Redhouse(with gammy eye,but healthy),then the resident Barn Owls, followed by superb display SEOs at Poppleton.Plenty goosander at Redhouse with 1 snipe flushed,tree sparrow,bullfinch etc .
 

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Blackcap in the snow

Amazing birds in the garden during the cold spell. Herring, Black Headed, and even 2 LBB gulls flying over local gardens looking hungry obviously wanting to land. A heron drifted around at roof level several times. Long tailed tits joined the usual suspects on the feeders and mistle thrush has been around for days. But today a male blackcap has been flitting around - a strange sight in the snow. Got some poor pictures - will post the best. Has anyone else had winter blackcap in Yorkshire?
 
But today a male blackcap has been flitting around - a strange sight in the snow. Got some poor pictures - will post the best. Has anyone else had winter blackcap in Yorkshire?

One reported from a Cottingham garden last week. If you are in the Hull Valley, worth letting the website know. They love cheese, suet blocks & taking potato from an old jacket potato ;)
 
Had a walk around part of Eccup Reservoir this morning, the first time in absolutely ages.
I was very happy to see that the old high wire mesh fencing had been replaced by a low level barbed wire fence. You can now scan the res without suddenly loosing a bird behind a fencepost.
There wasn't a huge amount of species about but wigeon and greylag geese numbers were easily up to a couple of hundred. The wigeon were down the western end of the reservoir but the geese were in the fields to the west of Goodricke Lane. Tried my damnedest to turn one of the greylags into a bean goose but sadly they wouldn't play ball.
Had singleton goldeneye and goosander, along with a handful of teal, mallard and tufted duck. Passerines were very few, mainly blue and great tits in the scrub.
A red kite being mobbed by crows was a nice way to end the walk, the bird was little more than 30 foot up so the bins weren't needed for good views.
 
Generally quiet but 2 barn owls yesterday.Flock of c. 60 siskin/redpoll but elusive.Highlight yesterday was the mammals!!

Fantastic pictures Paul as always, suffering from man flu at moment so only doing armchair birding but still picking up all five common thrushes flitting about the gardens down my street.
 
Had fantastic views of a flock of Fieldfares on the way home yesterday from Filey. They were flying and swooping like starlings do.... there must have been over 1000. Never seen anything like that before with these birds, I've seen lesser flocks 2/300 but how they swirled around high up, I had to stop the car (on the busy A166 ) and take it in.
Joe
 
Blackap

One reported from a Cottingham garden last week. If you are in the Hull Valley, worth letting the website know. They love cheese, suet blocks & taking potato from an old jacket potato ;)

We are about 6 miles south of Selby so not in Hull valley but thanks for the suggestion. The bird returned several times during the day but showed no interest in the food on offer. He did a lot of preening and rooting around in a dwarf willow which the blue tits and wren also frequent. I assume this is a bird driven out of central Europe by the severe weather so there may be more around. I attached a couple of shots - taken at distance through the window so not great but ok.

Eric
 

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Larus laughter

Still loads of Thrushes in the garden today.

On a seperate note check out the budget gull masterclasses coming to a seafront near you soon...

Anyone who has not checked out this gull masterclass link - it's a hoot - have a look.
Brid is my gull hunting ground but I do not get there often enough in winter. If it helps with the masterclass I did a survey on food preference of harbour gulls. Of the argenteus I interviewed, 37.5% preferred haddock in batter, 43% were codheads but disgruntled at the lack of supply, a small group of gourmet gulls would only eat fish from Audrey's, 7.89% were happy to fly a bit further to nick fish from Busy Bees, but a rough looking lot from the south pier would eat anything that had ever been alive.
This brute below was last seen eating a tourist's spam fritter. I don't like the way he was looking at me.
 

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Had a walk around part of Eccup Reservoir this morning, the first time in absolutely ages.
I was very happy to see that the old high wire mesh fencing had been replaced by a low level barbed wire fence. You can now scan the res without suddenly loosing a bird behind a fencepost.
There wasn't a huge amount of species about but wigeon and greylag geese numbers were easily up to a couple of hundred. The wigeon were down the western end of the reservoir but the geese were in the fields to the west of Goodricke Lane. Tried my damnedest to turn one of the greylags into a bean goose but sadly they wouldn't play ball.
Had singleton goldeneye and goosander, along with a handful of teal, mallard and tufted duck. Passerines were very few, mainly blue and great tits in the scrub.
A red kite being mobbed by crows was a nice way to end the walk, the bird was little more than 30 foot up so the bins weren't needed for good views.
I did the WeBS count at dusk, over 500 Wigeon and 300 Teal but only 21 Goosander - Eccup used to hold over 100 in the winter roost. About 20000 gulls in the roost, I was a bit late so didn't pick out the Mediterranean.
There were at least three White-fronted Geese (and a Bar-headed Goose) with Greylags in the field by Goodrick Lodge.
This morning at Harewood there were over 1000 Canada Geese and at least 58 Barnacles (plus three Egyptian Geese) and again no storks.
 

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