Hand Made By Roberts

 You know what it's like. There you are walking along the road on a lovely, sunny, freezing cold morning and you see something that reminds you so much of something else that you can't wait to get home and see if your memory is playing tricks.

I saw this near Goxhill:

and it reminded me of Robby The Robot from Forbidden Planet 😂😂

In retrospect it isn't that obvious, but the brain works in mysterious ways sometimes.

On a wildlife front there were good birds around this morning - a Stonechat was my first record down the Trans Pennine Trail.

Yellowhammers

Yellowhammers

Chaffinches

Stonechat

Stonechat

Still a Stonechat

Take It As Red

 Well what a change from yesterday! It was 2 degrees as I walked out yesterday and it was 10 degrees today. I nearly put my shorts back on 😂

Straight down to the Mere then to see what's about. The sky was clearing nicely as I walked through the fields and soon the sun shone brightly as the clouds moved out of the way.

In the hawthorn field the Redwings were present in good numbers again - I counted more than 50 though it's hard to get a decent count as they are so flighty, and fly off as soon as they see any movement. Just 3 Fieldfares today in the tree tops.

Good autumnal colours have been few and far between for some reason this year, with the wind seemingly taking most of the leaves away before they have time to provide a real visual spectacle.

Best I can do for now

The relatively short grass (courtesy of the sheep grazing here often) provides a good habitat for waxcap fungi and I found what I think are Scarlet Waxcap this morning.

Scarlet Waxcap

Scarlet Waxcap closer view

On the way home the drake Long-tailed Duck was out in the middle of the water with a few Goldeneye, but too distant for photos today.

 

A Shelduck flew in with a couple of Mallard and landed on the edge of first field. I walked down to get a better view and a photo or two.

Shelduck off first field

Whooper Swans have been seen regularly over the last couple of months but usually very early in the morning or at dusk, with just a few flying in mid-afternoon. Pity they don't stay longer on the Mere and it would be nice to understand what makes them seek other water bodies to feed on. Depth of water? Specific food? Lack of disturbance? All of the above?

Sunrise Walk Along Hornsea South Cliffs

As the days get shorter it gets easier to be up and out when the sun rises - as I was today.

I've been checking the stubble fields on the cliffs for Shore Larks, Snow Buntings and Lapland Buntings, but I haven't been lucky enough to see any yet. Lapland Buntings were reported last week but on a day when I didn't walk the cliffs.

The day started bright and cold as befits the time of year and we had our first frost of the winter with temperatures down to zero overnight. 

Unfortunately there were no birds of note this morning, but it was a good walk none the less.

Sunrise over Westermost Rough wind farm

The view from higher up on the cliffs showed the north-south tidal drift very clearly.

I couldn't let a breezy day with an incoming tide pass by without getting some spindrift pics now could I 😊

Spindrift off the incoming waves

 

 

Yesterday was a reasonable morning with a bit of sun showing through the clouds which enabled me to get a few birdlife photos. 

 

One of the many Redwing feeding on hawthorn berries

The wintering Barnacle Geese are still here

Close up of a Barnacle Goose's undercarriage

Great Spotted Woodpecker

Lockdown 2 Starts In Style

 The Covid-19 saga rumbles on with no end in sight and as we enter our second lockdown of 2020, one has to wonder how we can defeat this virus or at least start living with it in some meaningful way.

 Meanwhile the world's wildlife is doing what it does best - getting on with life and turning up to enrich our lives.

A possible Ferruginous Duck was spotted on the Mere yesterday morning. I went along to have a look and went out again in the afternoon, but with the light being pretty poor any photos I managed to get were not very clear.

 The primary diagnostic identifier to me was the white undertail coverts and they were obvious through the scope, and show up quite well in the naff photos. Other points such as size, bill length and head shape are not obvious to me.

Ferruginous Duck

From my perspective, it could be

The only time I've seen Ferruginous Duck before was in France in 1999 when a drake in breeding plumage graced my scope and camera lens, in glorious sunshine and from about 50 yards away. This was a totally different matter: a female-type bird in gloomy light from about 300 yards. 

BUT!! The day was fantastic anyway! As others were trying to re-find the FD, I caught up with the adult drake Long-tailed Duck that appeared in the morning. A fabulous bird with, surprise surprise, a long tail. We have had long staying juvs and females before but this is the first adult drake I've seen here. Wonderful bird but too distant for good pics. Now, if KP had been open...

Also, while watching the FD an adult Slavonian Grebe swam by and 2 Whopper Swans that landed earlier were in the foreground.

Whooper Swans in the supporting cast

The light was fading fast so I packed up the scope just as the Starling murmuration started in earnest 😀

I only had my long lens so getting photos or video was difficult but the phone helped a bit. This was without doubt the best murmuration I've seen at the Mere and capped a great afternoon's birding.

How many?  Just part of the whole

Local Patch Walk

 A normal morning here in the Tier 1 (soon to be Tier 2) East Riding of Yorkshire, but unseasonably warm at 12 degrees with a balmy south westerly tickling my fancy. 

I walked straight on Southorpe Road towards the hawthorns hoping to get photos of the Redwing feeding there. On my way a few roe deer crossed the road in front of me, unbeknown to the couple who had passed by a few minutes earlier.

Roe deer sneaking over the road between passers by

Down in the hawthorns there were a few Redwing, but only 11 today and they weren't hanging around to let me watch them feeding. 

Cr@p pic of Redwing

I did see two dragonflies though! Looked like Migrant Hawkers to me, and this is the latest date I've ever seen any dragons before.

A small downy feather had caught on some hawthorn berries so I took a photo using the selective colour set to red. The nearest I get to arty farty photography 😂

Red berries and a white feather

A record number of Jays this morning for me with 4 seen and heard up in the trees. 

The Slavonian Grebe is still hanging around on the Mere and has been here for about a week now. There were two at one point but we're back to one again. This is assuming that it's the same bird of course, which it may not be.

Slavonian Grebe in dull, grey light

I went home via Rolston and I came across another roe deer that came out of the hedgerow and stared at me before wandering off through a gap in the hedge into the field. 

One doesn't usually get so close to a deer that a full frame photo is possible...

Instead of carrying on across the field, it stopped and waited for me to arrive at the gap.

A magic encounter but I hope it doesn't get too used to humans as there are far too many about that aren't content to just look and take photos.

Back home this afternoon five more roe deer wandered across the field behind the house and into the hedgerow. Everywhere I went today there seemed to be deer about. Nice 😎

Starling Murmuration at Hornsea Mere

The starling murmuration at Hornsea Mere is looking pretty good. I was a bit late tonight so I only got the back end of it before they moved west to roost in the larger reed beds, but it was still a great sight.

Starlings on their way west to roost

 I'll try and get there earlier tomorrow and get a better video.

A Circular Walk - kind of

 Along Hornsea's promenade there is a measured kilometre walk and at distances of 200, 400, 600 and 800 metres there are circular plaques, together with another at the end of the walk at 1 Km.

Each of the plaques shows a different bird that could be seen while walking the route.

During lockdown I decided to try and take a photograph of each of the species shown on these plaques, in a pose as close as possible to the one drawn. All photos were taken locally.

It's taken a while but here are the results at last. They look better if you click on each one so it gives a larger image.

The start of the walk at Hornsea south promenade

200 metres - Pied Wagtail

400 metres - Sanderling

600 metres - Herring Gull

800 metres - Oystercatcher

1 Km - Cormorant

 That's the end of another project, now what should I do next to keep myself occupied?

A Week Of Hobbling

 Well, I'm a bit upset as over the last week I haven't been able to walk the distance I usually cover due to a bad foot, so the opportunities for photographs and decent walks have been curtailed.

However, a few photos have been taken and I've posted them just to keep updates coming. The highlight of the past week was the Crossbills feeding in the pine trees along the start of the woodland walk.

To start with though, we had a couple of Great White Egrets which was nice, for a short while anyway, until the Grey Herons saw off the addition to our one long-staying bird.

2 Great White Egrets and a Grey Heron

Grey Heron seeing off a Great White Egret

Moorhens have been visible more than usual, maybe the fact that the Marsh Harriers are no longer feeding young has made them a bit braver.

Moorhen

Moorhen nibbling a water snail

Obviously not scared of the Sparrowhawk!

Sparrowhawk with its head in the shadow of the early morning sun

The Stonechats that have been with us for a week or more were still there yesterday morning, despite the vegetation being cut down.

Stonechat

Stonechat

The Crossbills were the stars of the wildlife show though, feeding and flying between the pine trees on Saturday morning. I had two juvenile Crossbills earlier in the year and they came lower down than these birds so the images aren't as good. I was more than happy to see them though, especially the brightly coloured males.

Acrobatic creatures these Crossbills

male Crossbill

female Crossbill

male Crossbill showing under tail coverts

6 of them landed in a dead tree on their way west

male Crossbill

 While I was busy with the Crossbills on the dead tree I noticed a Great Spotted Woodpecker land next door to them...

 

male Great Spotted Woodpecker

My field guide to British mushrooms and toadstools arrived so I've been spending a fair amount of time trying to id the species I've photographed over the last few weeks. I find them fascinating but quite difficult to separate from each other when there are so many species that look similar.

common bonnet fungus I think

common jellyspot

honey fungus, armillaria sp.

jelly ear fungus, photo'd with selective colour function

yellow brain fungus, photo'd with the selective colour function

Up to date now with these photos of a Dunlin on first field shore this morning.

Dunlin

Dunlin