Spring? Yes. It's Here

Despite a frosty start to the day it soon warmed up under the bright, warm and beautiful sun. 

As I walked towards the Mere I passed 3 singing Yellowhammers and found 2 more further on. A couple of females were looking on, probably not too impressed by the stuttering and incomplete songs of some of them. Mind you, I'm not a Yellowhammer, so who am I to criticise the songs?!

Female Yellowhammer, listening but unmoved?

At the woodland edge a few Goldcrest, I counted at least 4, were singing and feeding in the ivy. A Treecreeper was also briefly seen before it disappeared into the depths of the wood.

Singing Goldcrest (pity about the shadow)

Treecreeper

A cream crown Marsh Harrier drifted along the reed bed and I heard a Jay, Green Woodpecker and Common Buzzard calling. Meanwhile the usual background chorus of birdsong was continuing, with the number of species singing growing by the day. Fabulous, just fabulous.

 

The Linnet flock has dwindled but there are still a good number to be seen in the hedgerows and set aside field.

Linnets

We have been lucky through this year to have several long-staying birds at the Mere. Smew, Long-tailed Duck, Red-crested Pochard, Scaup and Slavonian Grebe have all been seen regularly. However, with Kirkholme Point being closed due to Covid, we have had little opportunity to get good photos of these birds. When they do approach a little closer to the vantage points we have, sometimes I'm there to snap them up.

Long-tailed Duck

Red-crested Pochard flexing its wings

Pair of Red-crested Pochard

On my way out of the fields a Kestrel was sitting in a hawthorn bush. Worth a pic I reckoned.

A lovely morning's walk, and I can now really look forward to welcoming back the first summer migrants. Wheatear, Chiff Chaff and Sand Martin - I'm ready.

A New Spring Wardrobe Beckons

 Yes! At last farmers are putting up proper scarecrows instead of plastic bags, birds on wires or gas guns 👍

I can now refresh my wardrobe, as it is well overdue according to my nearest and dearest. She says that scarecrows are better dressed than I am, so I can now put that theory to the test by swapping clothes with this fashion icon. I'll let you know how it goes 😂

My role model

The weather has taken a turn for the better these last 2 days and we had a high of 10 degrees here in Hornsea today. Gone was the woolly hat, spurned were the gloves, left on the shelf was the hand warmer, into the wash went the thermals. Oh, the joy of being warm-ish again!

A Black Redstart has been hanging around Rolston for a while so I reckoned it was time to catch up with it. I looked yesterday while I was walking through but it didn't show, so I went again today with my new lens, hoping it would pop up. It did!!

At one point it landed on a van roof

Black Redstart catching a bug

It seemed to be as interested in me as I was of it

I took many, many more photos but these are representative of those I got. It was very active and spent some time in a wood shed and I thought it was never going to come out again. It seemed to be catching plenty of food so it may well stick around for another few days.

In the large stubble field the herd of geese was about the same as usual with c.300 Greylags and Canadas - with just one Pink-footed Goose today.

A single Pinkie

At the pond the ice was melting quickly and a Grey Heron took off as I approached. Sorry, but I didn't know you were there.

Along the cliffs the ground was now wet and boggy so I searched for signs of birds probing in the mud at the field edge. I found some which could be Snipe or Woodcock. No footprints though so I guess the bird could have been standing on snow when it probed with its beak, leaving the holes but no footprints.

Holes in the mud where birds have probed with their beaks

Skylarks have been singing for a while but today was a song-filled day with at least 8 birds up and singing. It's a song that just takes me back to my childhood, walking up on the hills with my mate and Skylarks all over the place. The cliffs are of course fast disappearing with coastal erosion and the wilder places that Skylarks prefer are going too. There are arable fields along there that could hold a few birds but the rough grass is going to be a thing of the past I'm afraid.

Skylark in rough grass

There hasn't been too much to shout about at the Mere, although a couple of Little Gulls and a Slavonian Grebe are more than I could ever have hoped for a few years ago 😊

Little Gull at the Mere

Slavonian Grebe - distant but a Slav Grebe anyway

The influx of Woodcock and Snipe has been a revelation to me. I've never seen so many of these birds in so short a time. Woodcock seem to be being flushed from everywhere I walked, and the same with Snipe too. Getting a photo of Woodcock was beyond me but I managed a recognisable image of a Snipe.

Snipe after being put up by me

A Walk To Soggy Bottom

 Alas for Bake Off fans this is not a tale about under-baked cakes, flans or buns, but rather a tale of another wander into the wet, muddy and generally 'orrible fields around Hornsea. 

I don't like walking in wellies or work boots as they just aren't designed for such things, but the ground is so wet in most places that it has been inevitable that I have pulled on my heavy (but wonderfully waterproof) Muck Boots. It's like walking in deep sea diver's boots but worth it to avoid having to make detours around deep water and mud.

A typical wet and murky path

Poor farmers have to make some sense of fields like this

Enough about the underfoot conditions then and onto what scant wildlife has been seen over the past week or so. This won't take long 🤣😉🤣

Jon, our ever-present Mere watcher, has reported a max of 5 Red-crested Pochard, 2 Smew and the faithful Long-tailed Duck.  Photos of the RCPs and Smew have proven to be impossible as the birds have stayed out of reasonable camera lens reach. Nearly likewise for the LTD, but I did manage a couple of grainy images last Monday.

Our faithful drake Long-tailed Duck

While the weather and the light was good last Monday, I got a few photos of the Yellowhammers that have been hanging around Ouzel Hedge over winter. Up to six are still there. I've yet to hear them singing their evocative song about bread and cheese but it's not going to be long before they kick off with it. Last year I heard them singing for the first time on 6 February.

Yellowhammers brightening up the whole hedgerow

The large Linnet flock has been AWOL recently with only up to about 40 birds still feeding in the set aside, along with the Yellowhammers, Reed Buntings, Chaffinches and about 20 Tree Sparrows.

Tree Sparrers in t'edgerow

Another month or so and I'll hopefully be scanning these small gatherings for a sighting of Brambling, as they make their way back to their breeding grounds.

While I'm looking back to photos in decent light, when it was frosty last week I walked around Rolston, which I do at least once a week, and the teasels there were looking very beautiful in the early morning sun. 

Teasel And The Firecat (1971)

A small group of Goldfinches flew in to feed on them, which was charming 🙄

Goldfinches on teasels and warm woollen mittens...

Away from the fields and along the woodland edges (it's so frustrating not being able to walk through the wood while this blasted lockdown has closed the hides) the Great Spotted Woodpeckers have commenced their drum solos. None of them have reached the dizzy heights of Ginger Baker or The Prof (the late and greatest of them all Neil Peart) but they do try their best. Cue a pic of a GSW, also taken when the sun shone last week -

Great Spotted 'Pecker looking for a drum kit

Spring is getting its act together and will be out gigging shortly. For now we have to make do with small hints that the annual tour is imminent - singing thrushes and sprouting catkins for example?

A songing Sing Thrush

That just about ends the round up from a pretty hard week. Poor weather, a continuing lockdown, a shortage of open pubs and restaurants, no travel to outlandish and exotic places such as Bempton or Filey Brigg, no meetings with long-lost mates apart from Zooming past them online (which was great by the way!!!)  and no hugs from daughter number one since last year. Still, I reckon I'm a lucky so-and-so as I have the open air, great wildlife (or the promise of it) and my health - which so many of us don't have right now.

So Covid-19 do your worst and we'll still come out the other side with our chin (or chins in my case) held high and with a smile on our faces. I'm off for my jab tomorrow morning (Saturday 6 Feb as I write this) and a couple of weeks later I'll be even happier than I am now, which is pretty damn happy 👍