White-tailed Eagle at Hornsea Mere

 A quick post to say that we had a White-tailed Eagle at the Mere this morning! 

 

Dale found it and as I had just left him 5 minutes before, he rang to tell me. We met on the south shore to view the bird over the water to the north side.

 

First view at 08:10 through the camera lens (600mm). We were half a mile away.

 

The view to the eagle from the Mere south side

I've cropped a few of the photos I took and they are awful. The digiscoped photos are better, but not much, so just about record shots. It always had its back to us while I was there so no good looking for the massive beak 😂

This and two below are cropped off the camera

Digiscoped photos to the phone:

I had great views of the beast through the scope (thanks Dale) but the photos are merely reminders of a great morning.

Fanfare For The Common Bird

 Aaron Copeland wrote Fanfare For The Common Man in 1942, but I must say I hadn't heard it until Emerson, Lake and Palmer brought it to prominence with their rendition in 1977.

 

The summer migrants bring an excitement and exuberance to the days when they arrive and start to sing, and the occasional rarity turning up also adds to the overall lift that you get through spring. All very well and great while it lasts, but eventually all the summer and passage migrants leave and we are left with our common, resident birds. They should not be forgotten or ignored through these warmer months.

 

It was with this thought in mind that I started to think about them and for no real reason, apart from that's just how my mind works, I started to hum Fanfare For The Common Man and replaced "Man" with "Bird" - hence the title for this post.

 

I've been thinking about this for a couple of weeks and took the opportunity to take some photos of our resident birds, which are shown below and augmented with one or two older photos that fit the bill (pun intended🤣).

 

Still the nation's favourite bird - Robin

At the Mere Chaffinch is one of the most numerous passerine

s

Wren, what a raucous song for a tiny bird!

Pheasants are always there in the background

Not in my Top 100 but it's a good looking bird though

 Reed Buntings are with us all year but only sing through Spring/Summer. They are almost a member of the little brown job club, but the male stands out with his white moustache even in winter.

Female Reed Bunting

Reed Bunting

One of the birds that is a favourite of mine is the Skylark. It's song is a constant remionder of my late childhood days spent walking on the South Pennine moors. They are declining in numbers sadly so enjoy them while they are relatively common.

 

Skylark

Yellowhammer

Finishing on a colourful note, the Yellowhammer is another resident bird that really is eye-catching in full breeding plumage, but is also bright and charming through the rest of the year too. 

There they are - a selection of local residents for us to enjoy almost every day of the year. Get out among them and really appreciate them, they are, like so much of our wildlife, going fast as we make their natural habitat inhospitable.

Invertebrates - Sadly Under Valued

 Invertebrates are animals with no backbone. Large species groups such as insects, spiders, molluscs, worms and crabs are invertebrates. They represent over 90% of all living animal species.

 

Contrast that figure with the fact that vertebrates (animals with a backbone like humans) comprise only 5% of the total animal species.

 

We focus most of our interest and scientific research effort on vertebrates, even though the food chain relies so much on invertebrates. Invertebrates not only provide food for birds and humans but also have a critical role to play in plant pollination. Bees are important pollinators but they are alone in fulfilling that role.

 

We do not consider insects to be important, if we did we wouldn't wipe them out as indiscriminately as we do. We spray crops and weeds with insecticide, cut down undergrowth, mow grass verges, we keep the countryside looking neat and tidy when we should be leaving grass long and wild flowers uncut, as these are the type of habitat that support insects.

 

A simple exercise will show how insect numbers have tumbled in recent years. Remember when you got back from a longish journey in a car - how the front of the car was covered in dead insects? The windscreen used to be splattered with them. Check out how many dead insects there are on the front of your car these days. Hardly any.

 

Without insects food chains will collapse, and we are doing nothing to halt the decline in habitat loss. Why not leave a wild area in your garden, hassle the council to leave grass verges uncut (as long this doesn't affect road safety), tell your friends to do the same.

 

Rant over - what about the insects seen in and around Hornsea recently?

 

Hoverflies are my current favourites:

Common Drone Fly (Eristalis tenax)

Marsh Stripeback ( Parhelophilus versicolor)

Marsh Stripeback ( Parhelophilus versicolor)

Bumblebee Plumehorn (Volucella bombylans)

Common Batman Fly (Myathropa florea)

Long-winged Duskyface (Melanostoma scalare)

Lanuled Aphideater (Eupeodes luniger)

Ringed Beech Fly (Fagisyrphus cinctus)

Tiger Marsh Fly (Helophilus pendulus)

Yellow Bowed Smoothwing (Scaeva selentica)

There are a few more but I'll leave hoverflies there. I've found 29 species so far in and around Hornsea but I've only scratched the surface!

 

 Butterflies will hopefully be more numerous this year after last year's disaster. Eight species so far for me and a few have been seen recently:

Green-veined White

Large White

Peacock

Moths have been very scarce so far, with just a single species seen during the day.

Large Yellow Underwing

Large Yellow Underwing

Beetles - again I haven't seen many beetles yet this year, but no doubt they will appear eventually. This one was a new one for me, a soldier beetle species:

Soldier Beetle sp. (Cantharis pellucida)

Flies aren't exactly good subjects for photos but Scorpion Flies are quite pretty!

Scorpion fly - Panorpa germanica

Bees - so many to choose from and despite news to the contrary, they are out in good numbers as far as I can see.

Common Carder Bee

Mining Bee sp. possibly Chocolate Mining Bee

The above are just a small sample of the wide range of insects that are all around us, going on about their business and causing us little or no problems. I have come to enjoy looking for them through the summer months as they add a different perspective to wildlife watching. More to follow in the forthcoming posts (I hope!).

The Young Ones

 Young birds are all over the place which is great to see. We've had young Blackbirds, Dunnocks and House Sparrows in the garden and I've come across young Dunnocks and Blackbirds while out and about. Today I saw a few fledged Long-tailed Tits and heard Great Spotted Woodpecker young calling.

 

House Sparrow young 'un in the garden

Young House Sparrow

Fledged Dunnock

Fledged Dunnock

Juvenile Blackbird

Juvenile Long-tailed Tit

A rarity turned up at the Mere last week and was found by Jon. A Great Reed Warbler was heard by Jon on Saturday 10 May but he couldn't be sure of its ID so he didn't report it. The following day he heard it loud and clear, and so did Dale and myself. It has been heard and/or seen every day since. We went out in a rowing boat to get better views into the edge of the reed bed and had good views, although my attempts at photographing the bird were not great. Between the movement of the boat and trying to keep the anchor rope from going under the boat, I didn't get onto it with the camera apart from one image...

Great Reed Warbler

The wind has been a feature of the weather unfortunately over the last week - with Easterlies or North Easterlies every day. It isn't so bad when the sun shines brightly, but on grey days it is really cold! We've had more than our fair share of grey, cold mornings I can tell you!!

 

This morning was a good morning as the wind was very slight and the sun was out - cue warblers singing and insects emerging!

 

Singing Sedge Warbler

Common Reed Warbler

 

Common Blue Damselfly

Azure Damselflies in mating position

I took a lot of photos of insects today so I think I'll dedicate a full post to them in a day or two.