A Perfect Morning of Birds at Cleethorpes

 On 30th I treated myself to a morning with nature at Cleethorpes/Fitties.  On a mild (15C) overcast morning I parked the car at Buck Beck and set out along Anthony's Bank towards the Fitties with a few spits of rain in the air.  Being a Sunday morning the sea front was busy with people but things became more quiet once I reached the sea bank running past the Fitties.  The harsh calls of gulls were a constant companion along with the bubbling song of curlew.  Oystercatchers were continually piping and in the background the more bass notes of brent geese.  I had caught the tide right: just on the ebb with birds withing good viewing range. It made a change to visit this section of our local coastline and the birds were differnet.  Further upriver black-tailed godwit are more common but here there are mor bar-tails.  Sanderling were present feeding frantically on the tide line and good numbers of turnstone were present among the vast numbers of knot, dunlin and oystercatcher.  I was pleased to see a single ringed plover, while out on Tetney Marsh I thrilled to the unusual call of a whimbrel.

Looking out over the estuary from Tetney Marsh.

Tetney Marsh panorama

The Fitties Beach

The Fitties Beach

The Fitties Beach

Haille Sand Fort

The Fitties Beach

A special visit to Whisby

 At the end of October Heather and I had the privilege of being invited to a special 'thank you' event held at Whisby Nature Reserve and organised by the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust to say thankyou to those people who used to deliver magazines pre-Covid.  We were treated to coffee and cake, encouraged to take part in a range of activities to 'unleash the inner child' and presented with a new LWT publication: Wild Lincolnshire.  In the afternoon we joined a guided walk led by Matthew Capper, Head of Public Engagement and Communications, and Graham, the reserve warden for the past 18 years.  It was fascinating to listen to Graham describing the various management strategies on the reserve.  These have seen a huge increase in orchids on the reserve, especially the green-flowered helleborine, although, sadly they have not managed to help save the dwindling population of nightingales.  However, with a new rewilding initiative (similar to Knepp)  about to start at nearby Boothby Pagnell, there is hope that they will return in the future.  Of course, some birding was indulged in, the highlight being good views of brambling, my first for several years, and calling lesser redpoll and siskin.

Grebe Lake, Whisby

Grebe Lake, Whisby

Lincoln Cathedral

Mixed flock of finches with brambling in the centre. (archive image)

Brambling. (archive image)

Siskin (archive image)

Siskin (archive image)

Nev Cole Way, Stage 7

 October 27th dawned mild and pleasant and early in the afternoon we were shuffling cars in preparation for our 7th leg of the Nev Cole Way, from Roxton Sidings to Healing.  This was yet another very pleasant leg around fields, bypassing Stallingborough and finishing at Healing Station.  Another fine day topped off with an excellent meal at The Marrowbone and Cleaver.

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Novartis Ings

 A late afternoon walk today both to take Jet out and explore the new Novartis Ings wader roost site.  We were luck with the weather: mild at 14C with sunny intervals and fairly still.  Lucky with the tide too as it was approaching high tide and birds were being washed off the mud flats and and settling on the new roost site.  This is located where I expected but has now had scrapes excavated separated by banks, some of which will be chalk gravel while some will be grass, this providing birds with a variety of terrain for roosting and breeding.  We had an joyable walk with 21 species observed.  The site is fenced off but can be viewed from the boundary, especially the sea wall, although if it is an evening tide and a clear day one is looking straight into the sun.  A morning itde or cloud would be preferable. 

A Rare Twitch

 It's not often I indulge in 'twitching' ( chasing after rare birds), but when deciding where to go birding today I realised that a friend had found a very rare blue-winged teal at one of our local patches: Winter's Pit.  There are less than 13 sighting/year of this American bird in the UK each year. Unfortunately it was a rather dull female rather than the handsome male.  When I arrived, there was obviously going to be no problem finding the bird, it was like a busy car park on a bird reserve. As I set off down the track alongside the main pit I was joined by Allan, a birding friend.  It is always a pleasure to meet up and it was good to catch up.  The last time we had seen each other was a few weeks ago when we dippedt ou on another twitch: the Covenham wryneck; hopefully today would be more successful.  We knew where to find the teal as we could see a group of birders on top of a bank beyond the main pit.  As we walked along the sea wall the sound of a skein of pink-footed geese made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up; a wild call.  I was pleased to manage a quick photograph.  We soon reached the group of birders and scrambled up the steep bank to join them.  It's right over on the right on the edge of the reeds we were told.  It was but unfortunately there was a bush in our line of sight.  Eventually it moved out to join a group of shovelers.  It was way too far away for successful photography, though, but it did show a flash of its blue wing and I managed a very poor record shot.

Wandering back to the car in the perfect autumn sun and wonderful light, I just had time to take a few shots of some black-tailed godwit before heading home. 31 species on the day increasing my monthly count by 20 so a good session.

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Pink-footed goose

Blue-winged teal.  Left hand bird showing the blue wing patch.

Black-tailed godwit

Yellow Ash a Beacon of Light in the Autumn Sun.

 Part birdwatching and part looking again for autumn colour, this walk took me through the cemetery and into the woodland burial ground, a squeeze through the gap in the fence and a circuit of the Horsefield before returning through the gap.  I was thrilled to spot the roe deer buck, attentive to his doe in the meadow of the woodland burial ground. The long dead grass is so tall that the two deer were nearly completely hidden by it.  It would have made a superb photo if I hadn't left the long lens at home.

The Horsefield is looking very back endish now with bleached dead grasses and vibrant golds, yellow, red and bronze of autumn.  As I have done often this autumn, I took great pleasure in the vivid yellow of the ash trees Ash is one of the last trees to produce leaves in the spring and one of the first to lose them in the autumn. In a poor year ash trees will lose their leaves while they are still green, but this year the long hot summer has meant that they are colouring up to give a stunning display in the hedgerow.

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The large ash tree is a beacon of light in the autumn sun.

Ash

Ash

Fungus Foraying.

 It was incredible!!  Large swathes of the wood had been clear-felled.  We had picked up Jet and then driven out to Nettleton Wood to look for fungi.  It was difficult to believe that we hadn't been out for exactly a year but even more surprising was that in that time a large section of the forestry commission woodland had been clear-felled.  There is a completely different out look and it was good to get back into the familiar ground of the Woodland Trust section of the forest.  Made up of ancient oaks and silver birch, we love this part of the walk, but we missed the cathedral like approach through the scots pines which made it feel like the nave of a cathedral. Autumn colour was again spectacular, especially the braken.  As usual at this time of the year, fungi were plentiful, although the fly agarics were not in their usual location.  We did find plenty in a different part of the wood, though.  We met a couple who had been on a foraging course and were collecting penny buns (edible bolete) for their supper; perhaps that's why we couldn't find any!! As usual, many of my finds I experience difficulty with identification, but I am not on my own.  Our final find were amethyst deceivers in exactly the same spot as previous years and just as challenging to photograph.

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Fly agaric

Fly Agaric

Amethyst Deceiver

Amethyst Deceiver