Spring, plus Red-necked Grebe and Smew

 Time rolls on and spring is gradually uncoiling itself. It's beautiful to watch each day as plants slowly emerge and birds wake up to start their breeding cycle. Gradually, very gradually, green expands to overtake the dominant brown, "softly, softly, catchee monkey" as Lord Baden-Powell quoted from the Ashanti origins of the phrase.

 

Nettles

Lords and Ladies

Hogweed

Cleavers

Lesser Celandine providing much needed colour

 All these plants and more will grow into the greenery that provides so much of the back drop and support for spring and summer, without which the main player's roles would be severely diminished - and in some cases they would disappear altogether.

 

All well and good, but has anything exciting been seen? Well, not exactly exciting, but certainly expected and welcomed with open arms when they did appear.

 

A Red-necked Grebe dropped in last Saturday and drew several birders to visit the Mere to see it once word got out. As usual these days the light was poor but a few shots from distance were taken:

This and three below - Red-necked Grebe on the Mere

 

 A red-head Smew has also been seen since Saturday (although a sighting was also recorded on Wednesday but no follow ups). I got it this morning at the hide in mist and grim light, but I'll take what I can get right now.

 

Red-head Smew at the hide today

As noted above

Siskins are still being sighted and heard in small numbers around the Mere - this one was with a few others in Heslop's copse last week.

Siskin

As you can probably tell from the photo I had to over-expose the image by a lot (+2 stops) to get anything at all apart from a silhouette as the bird was back-lit. It wasn't sunny (surprise surprise) but it was bright enough to cause problems - I like a challenge every now and again, but every day is getting a bit waring 😂😂

 

Common Buzzards are joining the other birds in getting together with potential partners, and last Tuesday when the sun was out there were five of them soaring above Wassand.

One of five Common Buzzards (note the blue sky!)

Common Buzzard

A personal favourite bird, the Treecreeper, has become less and less common around my local patch. Three years ago I found three Treecreeper nests in spring and followed each one to the end of the breeding season. Two were succesful but one failed as the dead tree it was in fell down (after the nest had been predated by a Woodpecker). The host tree of one of the other nests also fell down a few months later. Subsequently I have seen far fewer Treecreepers through each year. 

 

These photos are of a bird found near Weatherhill last week. 

Treecreeper

Roe deer are being seen more and more and I had eight the other day along the south side of the Mere.

Six of eight Roe deer

One of the other two

I'm hoping for better weather and light in the coming weeks and I know it will arrive, it just seems a distant light at the end of the tunnel right now 😉

Meteorological Spring is Here

Meteorologists generally define four seasons in many climatic areas: spring, summer, autumn (fall), and winter. These are determined by the values of their average temperatures on a monthly basis, with each season lasting three calendar months. The three warmest months are by definition summer, the three coldest months are winter, and the intervening gaps are spring and autumn. Meteorological spring can therefore, start on different dates in different regions.

In the USA and UK spring months are March, April, and May.

Of these bee species we have at least three here in Hornsea - Buff-tailed Bumblebee, Early Bumblebee and Tree Bumblebee. I haven't seen the other two, but you never know...

 

The Sun At Last

Last Sunday I walked along the cliffs in beautiful sunshine (see later).

 

It's been almost a week since we saw the sun last.

 

Monday to Friday was just grim every day - rain/drizzle, Easterlies or North easterlies, deep cloud cover making everything grey and dark. I didn't even go out walking on Thursday and Friday as I was just fed up of having rain on my glasses and not seeing anything of note anyway.

 

So this update covers just last Sunday (8 Feb) and today (14 Feb).

 

A walk through Rolston and back on the cliffs last Sunday boosted my mood as the day was sunny and dry with minimal wind. There were some good birds in Rolston but none were obliging enough to hang around for my camera to capture them. These included a singing Chiff Chaff (I assume it was an over-wintering bird rather than a very early migrant) a hooting Tawny Owl and a noisy Jay.

 

Along the cliff tops Skylarks and Meadow Pipits were moving in good numbers - all southward. Several hundred gulls were bobbing around on the sea, but I couldn't pick out anything other than the usual mix of our common species.

 

Looking North to Hornsea

Great Black-backed Gull and two youngsters wanting food on the beach

Meadow Pipit

Mipit

Mipit

Skylark singing over South Cliffs

Skylark  (and the six below)

Fast forward over the rest of the week (apart from one photo of the Oystercatcher) and we come to today.

Oystercatcher at the Mere 

Today was so much better, I breathed a sigh of relief this morning as I stepped out of the house into sunshine and no rain. I walked along Southorpe Road and past Weatherhill and then came back, as the ground is so wet that wellies are a better choice of footwear to go any further - I'll do that tomorrow morning. 

Lots of birds were singing, with Blue and Great Tits being particularly active and Dunnocks out-singing Robins. Three Song Thrushes were singing too but not on my Mere BirdTrack patch.

Blue Tits possibly pairing up already

Blue sky!?!? I'd forgotten what it looked like

Singing Dunnock

I cut short my walk in the morning as I had some work to do at home and went out in the afternoon, but only down to first field at the Mere - again the ground is too wet without wellies.

 

We've had up to 17 Scaup in the last ten days or so and I saw seven trhis afternoon.

Male and female Scaup

Female Scaup

Two male Scaup

Well, that's it for this update. A poor week really, although the Great Northern Diver stayed at the Mere and was seen again this afternoon. I am hopeful that next week will be better 😀

Great Northern Diver and Grey Days

 The weather has been grim with thick cloud hiding the sun very successfully - apart from today when it broke through for about half an hour.

 

Yesterday a Great Northern Diver was on the Mere, but despite having a good look around I couldn't locate it. This morning though it appeared over towards KP as seen from first field, swimming west very quickly. I walked round to KP in the hope I'd get a decent view before it disappeared over the horizon.

 

 I found it about 100 yards west of KP in gloomy light as the sun hadn't come out to play yet.

Great Northern Diver in front of a buoy

Great Northern Diver

GND preening

 I went for a walk along the River Hull earlier in the week. I decided to go there rather than down to the Humber as the Easterly wind was very strong, and I thought going a few miles inland the wind would not be as strong. Mistake! The first mile or so was very exposed and it was damn cold up on the path level with the river. I dropped down out of the wind, which was warmer, but I couldn't see any birds - back up the banking then.

 

I had lots of Cormorants and Goldeneye along the length of the river and I could hear Redshank but didn't spot them for long enough. Once found I counted about 50, all along the far river bank. 

Redshanks along the River Hull

Great White Egret and Cormorants

Oystercatcher and Teal on the river

 

The water level is still very high and the path was pretty muddy, but not too bad really given the amount of rain we've had.

River Hull - a line of shrubs where the river bank usually is

As I approached High Esk lake I hoped the path was still OK and not underwater. It looked fine so I set off around the lake footpath.

High Esk lake on the right, River Hull on the left

Lots of Wigeon were on the lake along with a few more Goldeneye, a couple of Great Crested Grebes and a smattering of Tufties.

Wigeon

Great Crested Grebe

About 35 Redshank over the water

 

A few hundred yards round the lake I found that the footpath was underwater, with water flowing from the lake into the river. I couldn't go through as I had walking boots on  - wellies would probably have got me through but I planned on walking about 10 miles so wellies were not an option. 

A watery end to my route

I decided to go back to the car and spend the rest of the morning in Wassand Wood.

 

As a good friend of mine reminded me this week - 

Cheers Nick 🤣🤣

and there are more and more indicators that this is true. Song Thrushes are singing, Great Crested Grebes are displaying, woodpeckers are drumming and plants are bursting through the gloom. 

Hazel catkins

Winter Heliotrope flowering

A beautiful show of Snowdrops at Wassand

I live in hope that the sun is still up there and that we will eventually see it. The forecast could be better but at least it isn't freezing cold or raining (yet).