Ornithology 

Contact	-
Date and Time	-	TBA
Meeting Place	-	Various

Activities

Steps Hill and Ivinghoe Beacon - Friday, 23 April: An early start helped us to see and hear many of the resident and summer visiting song birds. We had good views of Meadow Pipits, including two fighting males. Many Skylarks were singing, and Yellowhammers and Bullfinches also showed themselves well. Definitely on passage were about a dozen Wheatears on the sheep pastures, very smart in their whites, greys and black with a delicate pinky-orange flush on their breasts, all showing a prominent white rump when they flew. 

Northumberland - 17-21 May: Both outward and return journeys were broken by visiting very interesting wetland reserves. On our way north we stopped at Old Moor RSPB reserve near Barnsley; where there were many breeding waders, including Little Ringed Plover. We returned via Attenborough near Nottingham.; The Notts Wildlife Trust reserve of gravel pits alongside the River Trent. For this trip we stayed at a hotel on the outskirts of Newcastle, so that we were within reach of both the Northumberland Coast and the North Pennines. We were ably led by local guide Nick Mason. On Tuesday we had our much anticipated boat trip to the Farne Islands. The sea around the boat was full of those auks fishing, and they were joined by many Puffins. Then we landed on Inner Farne and could see them all from the land at very close range. The top of the island is one enormous Arctic Tern colony, with a smaller number of the larger Sandwich Terns. A few Eider Ducks were sitting very tight on their eggs, and did not move even if we were two feet away. It was the Puffins that most of us wanted to see, and we were not disappointed. Many were perched at the entrances of their burrows, and there were even about half a dozen perched on top of the tower on the island. Wednesday was spent further south at Budle Bay. We visited a number of reserves in the sand dunes and the pools behind. Thursday was spent in the North Pennines. At Allenbanks - a wooded gorge, we had good views of Dippers, both Spotted and Pied Flycatchers, and of a pair of Wood Warblers collecting nest material. On the high ground of the Durham Pennines, we had distant views of a male Black Grouse - now a very threatened species south of Scotland. On route we also spotted the commoner Red Grouse from the coach windows. Nick next took us near to the nest site of a pair of Ring Ouzels - the birds had fledged, and we were able to see both adults and one of the fledgelings. Our last stop was in an upland valley where we hoped to see Golden Plover. We did not see them but were compensated by more good views of Dipper, and of a female Cuckoo which did its bubbling call, and was answered by cuckooing from an elder male.

Keep Still.  Don't 'Tern' your head, Trevor.

Lea Valley - Friday, 25 June: Having learnt that the Kingfishers at the RSPB reserve of Rye Meads were breeding in front of a hide, I arranged this trip to get good views of them. We were lucky - we arrived just in time to see the birds change places on the nest, The male bird posed for us on its post in front. After about a minute it flew into the nest hole. A minute later a bird flew out and away. From the same hide we had good views of a Reed Warbler. A pair of Kestrels were nesting in a box on a pylon in the reserve car park, and we saw one of the chicks peering out of the nest. In the afternoon we went to the Wildlife Trust reserve at Amwell. We had a pleasant surprise at the parking place, as a pair of Spotted Flycatchers were hunting for insects in the tall trees across the road. The main viewpoint provided us with great views of Sedge Warbler, Reed Warbler, and Reed Bunting. On the island in the lake, two smaller waders were feeding among the Lapwings on the muddy shores. The Green Sandpiper was probably a non-breeding bird of a year old, as they breed not in Britain but in boggy Scandinavian forests. The Ringed Plover could have bred, but we could see no sign of it having done so.

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