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 👍