Only 24 hours in Yorkshire (1 Viewer)

Despite being right next door to County Durham, my knowledge of Yorkshire and its birding sites is scant. Apart from Castleford of course, whose combination of year-round real snow to ski on and a nearby wetland to bird on has proved irresistible to me in the past.
I’ve nothing against Yorkshire in principle…it’s just that it’s a bit too big, and gets in the way sometimes. Like when you’ve been working Somewhere Down South, and cross the Derbyshire border. You’re back in the North, only one more county to go…a feeling of momentary relief is inevitable, followed by the immediate realisation you are still south of Rotherham, with a quick and possibly important decision to take whether to wind your way round Sheffield and Leeds on the motorway, or take the direct but wagon-clogged M18 / A1. Whatever you decide doesn’t matter in the end, as you’ll end up becalmed in that land of permanent road-works that is North Yorkshire.
When it comes to birding, there’s a further problem. Yorkshire isn’t only long, it’s also very wide. And getting to the coast doesn’t involve a dreary motorway journey. No – it involves negotiating Sutton Bank, or a winding route across the wild and windy moors to Helmsley. And you’re still a long way from the sea. It’s understandable then that most birding journeys take me north, up the Northumberland coast and into Scotland, while a southward trip usually ends at Teesmouth.
However, all this changed when the new ‘Best Birdwatching Sites - Yorkshire’ guide popped through my letterbox. I must admit, I love reading about birding sites. It always makes me want to go there. Unfortunately when I read up on how to get there, it usually means an expensive flight to Bogota or Gaborone, followed by US $250 a day for a bird guide, or four figure sums for a safari camp. And how will I persuade my better half that Colombia really isn’t full of armed insurgents anymore? As I pored over my new book, Yorkshire was starting to seem like an attractive alternative.

RSPB Blacktoft Sands

As my partner was going to be away in Germany on the weekend of 19th August, leaving me to my own devices, instead of our more gently paced birding the idea of a more hardcore solo trip began to emerge – a Yorkshire Big Day. The problem is, on the only day I had free of work, I’d arranged to meet my son, his girlfriend and her family in Newcastle for a meal…so I’d have to start early, or I’d end up with birding truncated into a Big Lunchtime. Then I found I had to go to Immingham for work the day before, giving me the opportunity to start after work then stay over, allowing me to reach what I hoped would be an eclectic but rewarding selection of sites the next day – 24 hours in Yorkshire.
I’d better explain at this juncture that my site list was heavily biased towards advancing my very modest UK year list total, maybe taking a step towards my still-modest personal best of 182 set in 1972 (actually 181, but I didn’t count feral pigeons then…), rather than achieving a big day list. It had been stuck for a while on 155, and needed a boost if I was going to get anywhere near my adolescent self’s record.
An early start at work in Immingham allowed me to reach RSPB Blacktoft Sands just after 16:00, giving me time for a welcome cup of coffee and chat to the warden – a Co. Durham native - in the visitor centre cum hide. Two green sandpipers were a great start, and a new addition for my year list. Walking down to the Marshland Hide, I soon added spoonbill, then scanned the waders and wildfowl – I’m ashamed to admit common snipe was also a year list addition. While doing so, the previously silent birders suddenly started clicking furiously. I looked up to find the spoonbill had relocated closer to the hide, and been joined by a second. It didn’t appreciate the company, and the altercation with its neighbour set off more clicking – this time I joined in. I moved back to another hide, this time empty, and added spotted redshank to my year list. With redshank, ruff and black-tailed godwit also present, it had been quite a wader-fest. I’d like to have stayed longer, but needed to check into my hotel, and had one more site to check out before nightfall.
But where to stay in what the guidebook describes as a land of 'picturesque Dales, wild moors and coastal migration hotspots'? Well, that was a no-brainer…it had to be Doncaster!

M18/M180 Travelodge - and Hatfield Moors

Doncaster M18 / M180 Travelodge isn’t a birding lodge. It’s a lodge to use when you’re travelling. There are no hummingbird feeders in the garden; large felids don’t pad silently through the grounds in the night. In fact, it’s not even in Doncaster, situated as it is in a motorway service area. It is, however, a convenient place to stay if you want to visit one of the sites that make up the Humberhead Peatlands National Nature Reserve, one of the largest remnants of the once extensive raised bogs that covered the flat lands of Yorkshire’s south-east. The book gave me a choice of Thorne Moors or Hatfield Moors. Hatfield was described by the authors as ‘not as tricky or vast’ as Thorne…when I read about the time-sapping mile walk-in to Thorne, my choice was made.
Time was fast running out for one prime target, nightjar – a bird which actually features on my partner’s Northumberland garden ‘heard-from’ list, but we haven’t heard any locally after a run of bad summers. We’d tried perhaps a bit too early in May this year on the Suffolk heaths, but weather was against us that night. Now I feared I’d left it a bit too late in August. I’d planned a recce in the evening, so I could find my way around easier for a pre-dawn start the next day. The forecast had been for rain and wind, so I didn’t think it worth staying. However, as I explored the Boston Park area of the site, the light shower that greeted my arrival eased, and the wind dropped, so I changed my plans and went for an evening session.
I first walked up the path which runs parallel to the prison – the guidebook’s authors warn you not to point optics at the prison, but the local birder’s website had reported turtle dove on the prison fence that week. I had a quick and surreptitious scan, hoping I wouldn’t trigger the sirens, or cause a pack of baying hounds to be released…thankfully no hounds, but no turtle doves either…
The guide was proving quite helpful in terms of navigation, Natural England’s signage less so – colour coded routes were set out on the information board, but trails weren’t waymarked that well thereafter. Instead, they had A4 size notices hung from trees, with information about the site.
Retracing my steps south and then heading out for the edge of the open bog, I found what looked like prime nightjar habitat – a series of clearings in the trees. Dusk was fast approaching, so I concentrated on these areas. Groups of greylags flew north across the Moor, while aircraft flew south on their approach to Robin Hood Airport. On one occasion, as the jet roar subsided, I heard a nightjar churring - not really expected it this late in the season, I’d been reconciled to picking up flight calls and getting lucky with a fly-past bird foraging. Unfortunately it soon stopped, and remained silent thereafter. It did give me the incentive to stay until it was properly dark, unfortunately to no avail. I then had to get back to my car, following what I hoped was a short-cut south. So much for a site recce! After a while I came upon a waymark – red and sort of cerise coloured arrows pointed in the direction I’d just come, but didn’t give any clue as to the way I was going. Shortly after, I came to a trail junction, and eagerly shone my iPhone on the Natural England sign…’Q. Can you name the Reserve’s star bird species that visits every year from Africa?’ Nooooo…..
After that I resorted to the aerial photography on the OS Maps app on my iPhone for navigation, and safely made it back to the car…which thanks to advice in the guide, I’d fortunately parked outside the locked barriers.

Brilliant reading...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UII2SOpPdHI

rosbifs said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UII2SOpPdHI

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Superb!

Hatfield Moors revisited

The next morning, I was a bit too late for a serious second attempt at nightjar…arriving on site at 05:00, the sky looked a lot lighter than it had 10 minutes earlier from inside my hotel room. I headed off in the direction I’d returned the previous night – a barn owl heading purposefully eastwards overhead made it worthwhile getting out of bed.
After a relatively brief visit to the heathland areas, when it was clearly becoming too light, I explored some of the pools I hadn’t had a chance to check out the previous evening. After seeing 3 little egrets, I met a couple of local birders who recommended I visit the easy-to-miss hide by the car park ‘although often there’s nothing there’. I followed their advice, and as well as great crested and little grebes, was rewarded with a summer-plumage black-necked grebe! Thank you!

North Cave Wetlands

North Cave Wetlands gets a really good write-up in the Yorkshire guide. Former gravel workings, it is now a Yorkshire Wildlife Trust reserve. One of its attractions is the Wild Bird Café, a mobile food van which reputedly opens at 06:30 each day. I thought this might be too good to be true, but was wrong – after showering and checking out of my hotel, I arrived just after 08:00, to find breakfast service in full swing.
Eating a bacon roll and mug of coffee on a wooden terrace overlooking a lake stuffed full of lapwings, with a green woodpecker flying over in the distance – I could see why the authors liked this reserve. It got better still in a hide on the east side of the site when a female garganey dropped in, although I failed to pick up the greenshank and Mandarin that an earlier visitor had recorded. Unfortunately my schedule didn’t allow for full exploration, so after two hides I retraced my steps and headed on for site number four…

Hornsea Mere

I’d come to Hornsea Mere really for one target species – the large numbers of little gulls that gather in the autumn. Arriving at the car park in a stiff westerly wind and squally shower, I set up my ‘scope on a promontory in the teeth of the wind and scanned the dark waters. Were those little gulls flying over the lake in the distance? I thought so, but this was turning into more of a freshwater seawatch…fortunately I remembered the guidebook stating that little gulls sometimes sat on the jetty when it was quiet. I walked round past the café to find a flock of little gulls on a pontoon, allowing excellent close views. That could’ve been a lot easier if I’d paid more attention to the guidebook, but I wasn’t complaining!

Flamborough Head

After taking in my fill of little gulls, next stop was an actual seawatch. I’d planned to spend an hour or so on Flamborough Head in the hope of seeing a passing skua (any skua would do!), but the fresh westerly was making me wonder if it was a waste of time. I have to admit the crowded car park and tacky café by the lighthouse didn’t create the most positive of first impressions. In the end I just gave it half an hour, after seeing gannets and kittiwakes, and instead decided to add in a site I hadn’t planned to include in the programme.

RSPB Bempton Cliffs

Getting to RSPB Bempton Cliffs from Flamborough proved more difficult than anticipated, as I hadn’t worked out a route plan beforehand, and prefer not to use satnav in order to preserve the functionality of my hippocampus. In the midst of the guidebook’s complex directions, no-where does it say you have to turn off in the centre of Bempton village….I wasted valuable time having to double back on myself. Coming from the north, the little brown sign is more obvious.
If the visitor centre at RSPB Blacktoft Sands is like a friendly little village shop, Bempton Cliffs is a shopping mall. They both, however, feature flocks of tree sparrows in the car park – RSPB certainly know how to make their car parks attractive to tree sparrows!
I know, like Flamborough, it also attracts a decent selection of migrants – marsh warbler was on the sightings board – but for most, it’s all about the gannets. I inevitably got side-tracked into taking lots of gannet pictures, as they rode the updraughts at the top of the cliffs – or to be precise pictures of parts of gannets, as even my 300mm fixed-focal length lens was proving a bit long…I was starting to run behind schedule, eating into what could be crucially important watching time at my next stop…

Wykeham Forest

Wykeham Forest raptor viewpoint was a welcome contrast from the caravan sites and car parks of the coast – remote and tranquil, there were only 3 other birders there when I arrived. Seen anything?, I enquired. ‘We had a goshawk about 5 minutes ago…it might come back up again…’ They soon left, leaving me alone to contemplate the very impressive view, along with the fact that 4 pairs of eyes are a lot better than one, and if I’d only spent less time trying to photograph those gannets…
Herring gulls moving west on the far side of the valley made me realise how difficult a less obvious raptor could be to pick up against the trees in the distance – something warned about in the guide - while every passing woodpigeon caused a momentary flutter of excitement. The guidebook recommends 3 hours…I could only do 1.5. At 16:10 my 24 hours were up and I left empty-handed - a lone crossbill chipping its way across the valley towards the forest behind me had provided scant compensation. In fact, I’d gone 24 hours without seeing a diurnal raptor – as I didn’t see a North Yorkshire red kite from the A1 on my way south this trip, a common buzzard seen on my way to work in Lincolnshire was the only species recorded in two days..

25 and a half hours...Sutton Bank

My final, brief port of call after a further hours’ drive west was Sutton Bank, where the National Park charge a minimum £2.50 for the privilege of parking. The guidebook says the feeders sometimes attract turtle doves, although only coal tits and siskins were present while I was there. Placing them right next to a cycle maintenance area probably doesn’t help.
I walked to the self-styled ‘best view in England’…hmm, it is impressive, but I wasn’t sure if it was even the best view of the day…for me it was a close-run thing between Wykeham Forest, and sunrise over the old peat-workings at Hatfield Moors. Maybe it was just the screaming kids, ignored by their grandfather talking constantly into his mobile phone while seemingly oblivious to the view, but Sutton Bank didn’t seem all that special. Time to head back to the Toon! Seven new additions to my year list and eight new sites featured in the guidebook that I’d never visited before – some I’d definitely like to return to.