Friday 14th July 2017

We had a lot of overnight rain last night which continued into the early hours which made for a very wet dog walk this morning. It was a cloudy and overcast morning with the occasional sunny period, 16C and quite a strong North Westerly wind.

I had a free morning today so without hesitation packed the camera gear and bino’s and  drove over to the reserve at Fairburn Ings for a couple of hours. It was 9.15am as I drove into the car park and parked up for the morning. I was pleased I had put my winter waterproof fleece in the car this morning as the wind was quite chilling at times. I popped into the visitors centre for a coffee and quick look at the sightings book before I headed over to the ‘Pick up hide’ for the rest of the morning.

A Little Egret was busily feeding on the far side of the lake, its legs gently stirring up the mud sediment around its feet hoping to disturb some small crustacean or small fish, after about twenty minutes it started to head towards the hide before a flock of six Jackdaws started to harass it and it flew off over towards the coal tips. A pair of Mute Swans flew in and landed in the middle of the lake and spent a good hour preening, occasionally stopping for a good stretch and wing flap before resuming with the preening. Moorhens with their chicks in tow were busily exploring the shallow waters, the chicks still very much dependant on their parents for providing them with food. 

It was interesting to watch 3 adult Moorhens gesturing with each other, chest to chest, with their bum’s in the air, this continued for about a minute before they all went off in their own different ways. 

The Purple Loostrife is in full flower at the moment and the bluish/purple flower heads swayed gently in the breeze. 

Over on the feeders, the Willow Tits were showing nicely and regular visitors to the feeders during the morning, quite often I just catch a fleeting glance of one and that’s it but today there where several popping in and out. 

Great Tits and Blue Tits were regular visitors along with their juveniles, still with their fluffy feathers, many looking a bit bedraggled.

A juvenile male Pheasant had quite an interesting standoff under the feeder with a large juvenile Moorhen, it was fascinating to watch both birds at close quarters, the young Moorhen would stand bold upright, stretching out its neck to look much taller than it actually was, then they would face up to each other, wing flap, have a peck at each other, and because the Moorhen ran off into the undergrowth I presume the Pheasant won this little battle.

There were lots of juvenile Robins around today, some with a light brown speckled chest, others, slightly older with the red just showing through their breast feathers, interesting to see these youngsters tackling the feeders, the adult birds tend to stay on the ground and hoover up all the spoils spilt from the feeders.

Dunnocks were plentiful today, I could listen to their call and song all day, they stand so proud on a branch as they sing their little song.

I had a couple of glimpse of the Willow Warbler today as it came in for some food, not as frequent as last weeks when I was here, but still nice to see, they look very familiar to the female Chaffinch, without the yellow markings though.

As the morning progressed the wind got stronger and stronger, coming from the North West it blew straight in your face, by 11.00am I had quite a headache as a result. I persevered till 11.30am when I called it a day and packed the camera gear away and headed back to the centre. Needless to say having ventured a hundred yards from the hide it was like a warm summer’s day, by the time I had another coffee in the centre and a chat with the wardens, the headache had gone and I headed for home. Another great day at the Ings.