Flamborough for a Day

 I went to Flamborough last Friday to meet a friend of mine, Andy, who came over for the day to do a bit of seawatching. He's an all round good egg with eyes like a hawk Merlin (see later).

The seawatch tally wasn't particularly impressive (apparently - I'm not a seawatcher at all) with 2 Arctic Skuas, a bonxie, a handful of Sooty Shearwaters, several Manx Shearwaters, dozens of Arctic Terns and Sandwich Terns plus not as many Common Terns as I would have thought. No photos to go with the seawatch words as I was too busy trying to keep up with what was passing to faff about with phonescoping.

Spending 2.5 hours sitting still was a bit of an effort for me as I feel like I'm taking root if I stay in the same place for more than 5 minutes 😂

We eventually managed to drag ourselves away from what I must say was a very enjoyable period of seawatching, with good birds and good banter.

After a spot of lunch we set off to walk north along the cliffs to North Marsh, where a Garganey had been reported in the last few days. I was very happy just to be mobile 😀👍

At North Marsh we'd been there perhaps 10 seconds when Andy announced he had a Merlin. "Looks like a juv" he said. It was!  I haven't seen a Merlin since we moved over to the East Coast so I was well excited.

Obstructed view of Merlin

Initially the view we had was poor as the long grass got in the way. The bird took off and landed on a fence closer to us but still behind grass. A Grey Heron came in and shifted it off its perch.

It flew from there and was obviously hunting something and landing on a fence post on the other side of the pond. We guessed it was taking dragonflies as nothing bulky like a small mammal could be seen when it was eating.

Merlin with prey (dragonfly?)

A couple of times it landed on a reed and that was the best opportunity for an unobstucted view.

Here's a few screen shots from the video:

Juvenile Merlin at North Marsh

While in the viewing area/hide we saw at least 2 Wall Brown butterflies, with more sightings after we left and walked back to the cliff top.

Wall Brown, or just Wall to its friends

Wall underside

Dragonflies were there in good numbers, as the Merlin could probably have confirmed, with Migrant Hawker, Emperor and Ruddy Darter all seen and id'd. The best views of Ruddy Darter were when we were on our way back to the cliff top, including a pair in tandem.

male Ruddy Darter

female Ruddy Darter

Ruddy Darters in mating flight

Back along the cliff top we were kept busy by the profusion of plants, bees, butterflies, birds, grasshoppers - anything in fact under the banner of flora and fauna. Andy and I share a love of nature and time just flew by.

Kestrel hunting over the cliffs

Roebuck

Rough Hawkbit

Scorpion Fly

Dusky Sallow moth

Vestal Cuckoo bumblebee

It was a fantastic day, made even better by Andy's sense of humour and his ability to spot anything that moved. This was my second visit to Flamborough in a few weeks and I really should visit more often, given the diversity of wildlife it provides.