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

Yorkshire Birding (16 Viewers)

Very pleased to catch up with the Desert wheatear at Bempton this morning. Much less successful was the ensuing hunt for bean goose, tundra or taiga which failed to be at lebberston, filey dams or hornsea mere.

Filey dams did have white fronts and whooper swans and I found a flock of around 70 barnacle geese in the fields behind the mere which also had long tailed duck, possible my last year tick now as I don't think I'll get out again until the new year.
 
Trystan I think I've also hit a wall with birding for the year. Got my mother-in-law in hospital with a fractured hip so I'm on cabbie duty ferrying people to and from LGI.
 
Spent four hours around Lebberston today before catching up with the Taiga. It seems that it goes to the pond near Flower of May for relatively brief drinks and washes, and then the rest of the day it could be found in the field opposite a driveway further down the A165. There is a sign at the mouth of the driveway, but I can't remember what it said, Lebberston something, house or grange or something. May be worth trying again if you are in the area.
 
White Goose

Travelling north up the A1(M) this afternoon several miles south of the A59 turn-off. In a field on the west side, a flock of pink-footed geese and as I glanced up from my reading (I was, of course, the f/s/p :t:), I saw a single white goose. Not a dirty looking farmyard type, but a bright one. Couldn't say anymore. Sorry. Having viewed a map, I would suggest it was the field to the south of the River Nidd. I recall that having passed the goose flock, there was a reasonable river running W to E under the road a short distance further north.
 
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Female and juv male what bushycliff?

sorry its an age thing -SCAUP-
was at BLACKTOFT today.. kestrel-sparrowhawk - peregrine- merlin -4 hen harriers ( 1 adult male ) - 36 marsh harriers - 2 whooper swans (fly past) - barnacle - 70 plus white fronted geese-- AN AMAZING DAY- and two tornadoe jets
 
sorry its an age thing -SCAUP-
was at BLACKTOFT today.. kestrel-sparrowhawk - peregrine- merlin -4 hen harriers ( 1 adult male ) - 36 marsh harriers - 2 whooper swans (fly past) - barnacle - 70 plus white fronted geese-- AN AMAZING DAY- and two tornadoe jets

Had the same 2 Tornados over the house repeatedly today. None of the rest sadly... Numbers of Marsh Harriers roosting has shot up - was in the teens a couple of years ago. I wonder where these birds are from. One would assume they are from the northern edge of the range in the UK with additional birds that are staying put from the local population. 4 Hen Harriers seems pretty good as well - actually seem to be a decent few about at the moment with 2 at Tophill and a few on the outer Humber plus 2 at Worlaby earlier in the autumn. Must have had a good season up on the isles.
 
Numbers of Marsh Harriers roosting has shot up - was in the teens a couple of years ago. I wonder where these birds are from. One would assume they are from the northern edge of the range in the UK with additional birds that are staying put from the local population.

It may not be as simple as birds coming down from the north of their range on its own, there appears to be a fair bit of movement in Marsh Harriers during the non-breeding season (mainly pre-migratory dispersal), for example at a site I'm working on in Lincolnshire we've had a wing-tagged bird recently, this was a juvenile tagged on the nest this year in Kent!

The movements of Marsh Harriers (especially pre-migratory dispersal) are fairly poorly known but it appears over half go between north and west first, before eventually going south and south west later in the autumn/winter. It may potentially be that with an ever increasing population in the south/east combined with the relatively mild few months we've been having that we are seeing more birds linger in our region.

Or it could just be all the local birds condensing since the weather has got more winter like?

There does seem to be a lot of Hen Harrier around this year!

Cheers, Andy
 
Keep your eyes peeled for this guy on your local patch and consider that he (and plenty others like him) are likely to trawl these forums to glean information on the next bird to target.

Given his history going back over 10 years I'm surprised he only got 6 months-do you know if this is the maximum sentence? Seems to me it would be best to lock him up between April and October every year!
 

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