Hornsea Wildlife and Walks: Time Marches On

We are in the third week of March already! It's amazing how quickly time passes once you get past 40 😂🤣 - as if my memory is good enough to remember that far back.

There hasn't been that much to get the juices flowing over the last week or so, just the usual wildlife with a few added bits to remind me that we are in the best season of all.

I am concentrating on counting passerines this year. Why? I've been assisting a friend who is writing an update to his book The Birds Of The Lower Derwent Valley - twenty or so years after his first book, and I've noticed that he often mentions how many "common" bird species aren't counted and reported regularly. So that we, at Hornsea Mere, don't have the same gap in our records I'm going to try and include as many common species counts as feasible each day in my BirdTrack submissions. This will augment Jon's daily counts of ducks and other birds seen at the Mere.

Meanwhile life goes on apace with birds now making themselves heard as they seek mates and nest sites. The singing and calling makes it easier to count them as often they are unseen in the canopy or undergrowth.

Coal Tit

The good sized flock of finches that is a feature of the set aside field over winter is reducing quickly, and I counted only seven Linnet there this morning, with two Reed Bunting, a Chaffinch and a Yellowhammer for company.

Linnet in the set aside

Along the sea front birds are starting to move and Red-throated Divers are the most numerous at the moment. Why they are now called Red-throated Loons baffles me, and in my totally old fashioned way I will continue to call them divers until the day I shuffle off this mortal coil.

Two Red-throated Divers off Hornsea

Bright, cold and sunny mornings have been the norm and the good light helps enormously with identifying and photographing wildlife. With a dead reed stem from last year to perch on and the reed bed as a background, this Reed Bunting is a good subject for a photo.

Male Reed Bunting

The uncommon Common Gull (aka Mew Gull - again, it'll always be a Common Gull to me) continues to frequent the Clover Field on the Mere south side, although numbers were down from previous days this morning.

Common Gulls on the south side

There are good numbers of Goldfinch through winter around the set aside field but through the rest of the year there aren't that many to be seen. Just two the other day...

One of two Goldfinch in the set aside field

The weather has been mainly dry which has allowed the Mere water level to drop at long last. It does mean though that garden birds have been using the bird bath more often. I had to fill it three times on one day and this female Blackbird demonstrates why 😂

Blackbird emptying the bird bath

Song Thrushes are the outstanding sound most mornings and this morning I had ten along my walk route. A little longer walk than normal today and that got several species' counts above their usual levels.

Song Thrush singing a song

At the hide last week I closed the north and east facing window flaps to lessen the cold wind. As I did I saw the large groups of Harlequin Ladybirds clustered around the hinges. They must have been there all winter sheltering from the worst of the conditions. They are an invasive species and are unwelcome here.

From Yorkshire WIldlife Trust: "Originally from Asia, the harlequin ladybird first arrived in the UK in 2004, and has rapidly become one of the most common ladybirds in the country, particularly in towns and gardens. It is one of our larger species and is a voracious predator - it is able to out-compete our native species for aphid-prey and will also eat other ladybirds' eggs and larvae. It can have multiple broods throughout the spring, summer and autumn, which also gives it a competitive edge."

Harlequin Ladybirds in Decoy Hide

This morning as I walked along Southorpe Road I saw four Roe Deer crossing the road in front of me. They were quite a way off so they didn't hurry to move along.