East Yorkshire Wildlife: January 2011

Sunday, 30 January 2011

Worlaby Owls

I went out to worlaby yesterday and it was third time lucky for me when the short eared owls put on a magnificent dispaly.
there was one perched almost motionles on a tree stump for quite a while before going into a fantastic display.
As it got nearer to dusk the light was fading rapidly and unfortunately there wa some cloud cover, but the owls kept on hunting and displaying right until it got dark and it looked as thought there might have been about 6 or 7.
apparrently they hang around while march so hopefully we be back again in better light.

Sunday, 2 January 2011

North Yorks

I set off this morning with the intention of targetting 3 species, velvet scoter, mediterranean gull and iceland gull.

I started at Filey Brigg and got there for first light.

there were a few common waders on the car park including oystercatcher, redshank, knot, dunlin and bar tailed godwit.

Once on to the beach and heading for the brigg I saw some common gull species, grey plover, curlew,purple sandpiper wigeon and great crested grebe.

On the brigg itself it was quite rough and the scoters were keeping their distance as were the eider.

I also saw a small flock of snow bunting fly north.

I did not see a velvet but some of the guys down there spotted a couple.

next it was on to Scarborough and dodging between the squalls I managed some nice shots of the mediterranean gulls with a rainbow in the background.

Then it was on to the harbour.First thing I saw was a large seal then the great northern diver.

I threw some bread into the harbour and almost immediately a small group of large gulls appeared including the iceland gull.It posed nicely for about 20 minutes before disappearing.

After that I had a quick look at Scalby Mills at the wigeon flock but they were quite distant so headed for home mid afternoon.