Lazy day

Juvenile great tit
When I hung that cone up on Sunday it was white with suet.

The thunderstorm we hoped might relieve the heat turned up at 5am and did little except make the air more humid and put the collared doves off singing. By lunchtime traces of the downpour could be found in the deep shade under rhododendrons if you looked hard enough. The birds weren't much easier to see out there, either. The young great tits hogged the suet cones as the house sparrows were disinclined to come out of the bushes for any great length of time.

House sparrow on its way between next door's ivy and my boysenberries

I listened to the cricket but come teatime I had to take my chances with the weather — and the trains — to get the weekly shop done. Having written off the blackcap earlier in the week there it was singing in a neighbour's garden while I waited to see if the advertised train was turning up or was joining the many cancellations. And then, just as I was muttering to myself about the train having been due in seven minutes' time for the past fifteen, there were two blackcaps, singing at each other from opposing platforms. (Please don't get any grand ideas about the station, it's very much like something your handyman uncle would knock together in his shed from a pile of wooden pallets and some old scaffolding.) Anyway, the 1723 rebranded itself as the 1754 and was running ten minutes late so I'd be lucky to get ten minutes' shopping in before I'd have to run back for the train home and find out it's been cancelled. 

I gave up and got the bus into Davyhulme to get the shop done there instead. A blackcap was singing from the sewage works as I walked by. On the way home I had to get the 250 and walk back through the park. Two blackcaps were duelling either side of the path from St Modwen Road. Sadly, there was still neither sight nor sound  of whitethroats on my local patch.

BartonCloygh

Despite the weather being a lot more clement by the time I got home I was too done in to do tonight's planned stroll. I'll be glad if/when we strike some happy medium between being frozen to the marrow and sitting by a blast furnace.

Stretford Meadows

A Stretford Meadows sunset

I had a busy early morning, which almost convinced me it wasn't going to be as hot as feared today. Dear reader, it was. A quick sken over the live departures web pages very quickly persuaded me that spending the day sitting on air-conditioned trains was a pipe dream. Out in the back garden the birds kept to the shade of cover, venturing out only to get a quick bite from the suet cones or have a quick bath. The old cock sparrow did a bit of singing, the cock robin emerged to strike poses to intimidate the interloper they chased off the other day. And all day the juvenile magpie that's become a fixture rattled and chunnered to itself from the washhouse roof.

It was cooler in the evening, presaging the thunder forecast for the night. I wandered over to Stretford Meadows for a stroll and was almost immediately poleaxed by the pollen count. I wondered how wise it was to go traipsing across grassy meadows in the circumstances but I was feeling bloody-minded. As it was, there was a world of difference between walking past gardens filled with mown lawns and privet hedges and walking through meadows of vetch and clover and long grass gone to seed.

Blackbirds, woodpigeons and collared doves sang me on my way to the meadows. Goldfinches twittered in the trees by the allotments and yet another in the young magpie assembly line was begging frantically as its parent tried to feed it. Overhead a few swifts hawked high over the chimney pots and a line of four cormorants flew in close formation in the direction of Woolston Eyes. Five parakeets looked to be heading to roost in Moss Park, I'll have to see if they do have a roost there.

The spadgers were busy in the hedgerows of Newcroft Road and swallows hawked low over the stables down at the end. Song thrushes and woodpigeons were doing most of the singing, backing vocals were few and far between, provided by greenfinches, goldfinches, wrens and blackbirds.

Stretford Meadows 

There were more song thrushes — at least a dozen of them — singing out on the meadows. The whitethroats and reed buntings could barely make themselves heard. A chiffchaff had one last chorus before retiring for the night. The male kestrel hovered low over "his" half of the meadows, really not caring that I was there and sometimes drifting over my way to see if I'd disturbed anything as I tramped along. I didn't reach for my camera, there was no call for upsetting him and one more kestrel photo won't make any odds.

Walking up the mound

I was hoping that I might strike lucky with a couple of targets. It was unlikely that a lesser whitethroat would still be singing this late in the evening, even if the common whitethroats were still singing their last goodbyes, but you never know your luck and I didn't have it this evening. I also harboured a hope I might come across the small stand (two plants) of twayblade I've seen on here in previous Summers. No joy there, either. In fact, I couldn't find any signs of all those marsh orchids I was seeing the other week. Soon the boggy slopes of the mound will be a sea of purple and pink, the thistles are in full bloom and the great willowherbs are coming into bud.

As the sun sets slowly in the West…

As the sun set I made my way down from the mound and made my way to Sandy Lane for the walk home. I don't know if I was more surprised by the drifts of chives growing through the wayside reeds or the ringlet butterfly fluttering through them. I hadn't noticed the absence of blackcaps until I heard one bubbling in the trees by the gardens on Sandy Lane.

Chives

A couple of dozen swifts hawked low over the station as I got home in the twilight. Perhaps I'd been overly pessimistic about them earlier in the month.

Wellacre Wood

Sunset from Wellacre Wood 

After two days of My Word! It's Warm! and two more days in prospect I was getting itchy feet. I had considered going out on a jaunt in an air-conditioned train but the warm weather was affecting services and I decided not to risk it. A trip out for a couple of errands persuaded me that staying at home saying: "Coo! What a scorcher!" was probably sensible advice. In the end I took a chance on a twilight walk round Wellacre Wood and was glad of more than just the exercise.

Wellacre Wood 

I got off the 256 and walked past the school into the wood. After the heat of the day the cool shade was refreshing. Song thrushes, blackbirds and woodpigeons were in full song, a couple of goldfinches twittered in the big hawthorn bush and robins sneaked about the pathside like mice. It's that time of year. The robins at home would be being more furtive than dunnocks had a stray male not tried to set up office in next door's garage yesterday. The parakeets and carrion crows went to roost, each one raucously announcing its arrival.

Wellacre Wood 

In the depths of the wood blue tits and great tits muttered at my passing by while blackcaps and wrens broke into song. I have to acknowledge that there are some walks i can do, even at my age, that are too risky for women to do unaccompanied by friends or large dogs and this walk at this time is probably one of them. Which is a damned shame.

The setting sun poked a hole through the trees and created this lighting effect.

I entertained the thought of walking round to Jack Lane, the song thrushes and blackbirds there were making themselves heard plainly. Unfortunately I had an eye on the bus timetable, I wanted to be sure of getting the five past ten bus home and I couldn't see my managing to catch it without having to march through the nature reserve in double time not looking at anything. Instead I walked down to Dutton's Pond.

Dutton's Pond 

A few anglers were sat quietly around the pond. As were a few mallards and a couple of families of coots, the near full-grown youngsters loafing aloof from their parents. A moorhen fidgeted about on the bankside.

As I walked away from the pond I heard a bird calling. At first I thought the moorhen was going off on one but as the bird got nearer it became clear it was something else. I stood still and listened to it, knowing what I was hearing but persuading myself I was wrong. All doubts were cast aside when the tawny owl glided into the tree in front of me, gave me a long stare then glided sideways into the trees on the other side of the path. Even with my usual owl blindness there was no missing that and very grateful I was, too.

Twilight 

I wandered back through the wood to the bus stop. The song thrushes, blackbirds and woodpigeons were having one last encore for the night and the jackdaws were flying in to their roost on Irlam Road. I had three minutes' wait for the bus. It had been a bit of a hit-and-run visit but I'd had a nice walk and it isn't often you get a close encounter with an owl that doesn't end in tears.

Bempton

Gannet

I've been telling myself for two months that I should be getting out for a visit to Bempton Cliffs. I was wide awake at silly o'clock so I got up, had breakfast then got the trains over there. As it happened, it was a wise move: it was swelteringly hot at home with a Very High pollen count while at Bempton it was merely warm and sunny with a fresh sea breeze and all the grasses uncut and gone to seed, so I had a very pleasant time of it. It was a shock coming back to the sweltering heat.

I got the train to Sheffield and the Scarborough train to Bempton. The highlight of the journey was the three marsh harriers we passed South of Driffield, a male pouncing on something in one field and two female-types quartering the fields a little further along.

Swallow

Bempton Station was full of song. Swallows twittered about the houses, goldfinches and linnets sang from telephone wires, blackbirds and chiffchaffs sang from the roadsides. Swifts swarmed low over the village green and St. Michael's Church, which I found very encouraging. As I set off up Cliff Road the house sparrows of the village gave way to the tree sparrows of the farmland and I was on my way.

Cliff Road 

Skylarks sang in the fields by the roadside, whitethroats and yellowhammers joined the goldfinches and greenfinches singing from the hedgerows. I stopped at every gap in the hedgerows, in part to savour the landscape and in part of wallow in the cool sea breeze. The excellent year for painted ladies continued, I passed at least a dozen fluttering about the roadside nettles and they easily outnumbered the large whites, peacocks and small tortoiseshells.

Bempton Cliffs was, quite understandably, very busy. Very busy nature reserves provoke my antisocial instincts but I've no call to moan about it, they were all there for the same reason I was. And it's a big enough reserve to be able to avoid the jam-packed watchpoints and still have a very rewarding visit. Which is what I did.

Joining the same path i was walking in North Wales the other week.

The tree sparrows fidgeted about the visitor centre, heard more often than seen as they were busy foraging in the undergrowth and the depths of the meadows. Reed buntings were conspicuous, it seemed like there was a singing male in every other bush. Meadow pipits and linnets were numerous but kept their heads down in the meadows most of the time. And all the time a male kestrel quartered the fields and clifftops.

Bempton Cliffs

Gannet
The first sight as I got to the cliffs

Gannets

Gannets a-courting

The gannetry was teeming. All the while there was a background hubbub that reminded me that one of the old names for the gannet was Solan goose. There were gannets of all ages but the majority were adults. The few youngsters that I saw were all very young. Quite a few pairs close to hand on the clifftops were spending most of their time sky-pointing together reinforcing their courtship bonds. 

Gannets

Gannet
A fourth- or fifth-year bird, I think.

Gannet

Gannet

Guillemot

The auks were harder work. Not that they weren't abundant but they were mostly either loafing on the water or dashing madly between cliffs and the sea. The loafing birds looked like a thin peppering about at first glance but there were lots of rafts of auks, mostly guillemots, out there and some of the rafts had fifty or more birds in them. Guillemots and razorbills had the time for a bit of a rest and a preen, the puffins were on the  go all the time. They'd zoom in towards the cliffs with beaks full of sand eels then suddenly disappear from view. As far as getting any photos of any of them was concerned it was a matter of pointing the camera where an auk looked to be headed and hope for the best. To be fair to the camera, this is precisely not what it was designed for and my reaction times aren't what they were. The few photos of puffins I got were by accident as I tried to capture passing fulmars. For once the fulmars showed very well and the kittiwakes were shy of showing. Perhaps the presence of a flock of herring gulls loafing on the clifftop was making them keep close to their nests.

Fulmar

Fulmar

Fulmar

Fulmar

Fulmar

Kittiwake

Puffin

Puffin

Gannet, exit stage top

Gannet

Gannet

Gannet
A second- or third-year bird, I think

Gannet

Gannet
Another one I think is a fourth- or fifth-year bird

Gannet
A second-year bird, I think. I thought something was wrong with its eye but the eye's okay, the apparent bulging wound is juvenile feathers on the ear coverts.

Gannet

On the approach to the New Roll-up watchpoint the gannets were providing breathtaking photo opportunities, flying in and stalling in the wind before dropping down to the clifftops. Of course, having the opportunities and successfully taking them are quite different things, I've plenty of pictures of tails and wingtips as the wind shifted and a gannet dropped, rose or banked. It meant I had a lot of photos to review but there were a few nice ones in there.

Gannets

Gannets

Gannets

The kestrel had drifted over to hunt over the clifftops

Walking back I was glad to see some razorbills had joined the pigeons of the cliff sides.

Pigeons (left) and razorbills

Black-tailed skimmer

I had a wander over to the pool by the car park, hoping to see some tadpoles or froglets. No tadpoles or froglets but plenty of azure damselflies and a black-tailed skimmer. And a willow warbler serenading the visitors to the pool.

Willow warbler

Willow warbler

Yellowhammer

It was slightly cloudier as I walked back to Bempton Station but still very pleasant walking weather. A blackcap joined the yellowhammers, whitethroats and greenfinches singing by one of the farmsteads. I had twenty minutes to wait for the train back to Sheffield after a very good day's birdwatching. Had I stayed local I would probably have been poleaxed by the heat and pollen count, I certainly was by the time I had walked back home from Urmston.

Bempton Cliffs