May Catch Up

 It's been a while since I posted anything here so let's see if there's anything worth looking at in my pics folders. Starting with today:

I have a new BBS square down in Aldbrough and went yesterday to do the early visit - that didn't go well given I could hardly see my hand in front of my face due to the fog, so I abandoned it half way though and went down today instead.

Plenty of warblers plus a pair of Sparrowhawks and a Kestrel. The Sparrowhawks were hunting along the cliffs and zoomed by so quickly I was lucky to id them never mind 'tog them.

Blurry Lesser Whitethroat

One of a pair of Lapwings

Swallow gathering mud for its nest

Sand Martins preening

Sand Martin with nest material

Early morning view of the turbines at Westermost Rough

One of several Whitethroats singing and displaying

It's a good square to walk through and I look forward to many more visits over the years to come.

Yesterday started really badly with dense fog and consequent cr@p visibility, so I came home and walked to the Mere in the hope that it would clear eventually. It did around mid-morning - good enough to get a fleeting glimpse of the Spoonbill as it circled over Decoy.

A little old Spoonful over Decoy

An otter showed itself for a few seconds before disappearing behind the reeds...

A brief Otter

Apart from those two sightings there was little else to shout about, but a nice patch of Bugle was good to see in the wood...

Bugle (Ajuga reptans)

Tree Bumblebee (Bombus hypnorum) feeding on Bugle

A pair of Kestrels continue to hang around the Mere and hopefully they'll find somewhere to nest.

female Kestrel on Star Wars day

A wander along north cliffs yielded not much but Meadow Pipits in the rape seed looked beautiful...

Mipit in rape seed crop field

Oh I forgot - ages ago on 3 May I walked up to the flooded field near Great Hatfield (called Ibbotson's Flash by the cognoscenti and why not 😉) to see what was about and the answer was a fair amount, but first I wandered along the south side of the Mere and Southorpe...

Cetti's Warbler in Heslop's

Pochard and Great Crested Grebe

Great Crested Grebe showing its great crest

White Wagtail at IF

Yellow Wagtail at IF

The same Yellow Wagtail

Little Ringed Plover at IF

Wolf Spider

Speckled Wood

Speckled Wood

Song Thrush near Weatherhill

Swallows at Southorpe

Plenty of flora and fauna to see at the moment so get out there and fill your boots! Butterflies have been few and far between but now the weather's warming up there should be a few more to see 🤞