A First Visit to Messingham Sand Quarry

 Attracted by posts depicting redpolls and siskins I decided on a visit to Messingham Sand Quarry Lincs Wildlife Trust reserve despite the poor weather forecast.  Although I largely managed to stay dry, it was a pretty miserable morning with heavy drizzly showers, although, when the sun did appear it provided some magnificent light.  I followed the usual summer macro route round the reserve but visited both hides; not the norm when hunting butterflies and dragonflies.  I failed to find the redpolls but the siskins were there in numbers - about 50 - feeding on alder cones.  I was also pleased to hear two cetti's warblers singing there startlingly loud jangling song, over nearly befor it has begun.  As usual though neither bird showed itself despite being very close.  I was also pleased to find a singing song thrush close to the car park.

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Blackbird

Chaffinch

Chaffinch

Coal Tit

Reed Bunting

Dunnock

Lapwing

Reed Bunting

Shelduck

Siskin

Siskin

Siskin

Siskin

Siskin

I Catch Up With The Cemetery Goldcrest and a New Patch Species

 Rather chilly and showery today with the wind from the north again keeping temperatures down.  Not finding the goldcrest in the usual spot I continued on towards the woodland burial ground, hearing both a jay and green woodpecker calling almost simultaneously.  On my way through the cemetery, heading home, I noticed a lot of activity in some trees away from the path.  These mostly turned out to be chaffinches and goldfinches but amonsgt them was the goldcrest.  I was trying to get some shots of it when I was distracted by a tree creeper, a patch first.  It lost this bird but did finally manage to get some record shots of the goldcrest.

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Blackbirds

Chaffinch

Common Gull

Common Gull

Goldcrest

Goldcrest

Herring Gull

Long-Tailed Tit

Long-Tailed Tit

Robin

Robin

Chiffchaff in the Freshney Valley

 It was a beautiful sunny morning, although with a chilly wind from the north as I parked up by Little Coates Church to walk along the Freshney Valley.  Almost the first bird I saw was noticeably different to the usual.  It reminded me of the quick furtive movements of the tiny goldcrest I have been seeing in the cemetery but when I finally picked it up with the binoculars I could see that it was a chiffchaff.  I was both surprised and delighted as it was either a very early summer migrant or, more likely, a bird that had overwintered.  Either way it eluded the camera and so I continued with my walk hoping that it would be there on my return.  I enjoyed a very pleasant hour or so of birding and especially enjoyed a glimpse of a kingfisher as it zipped along the river.

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Cherry plum

Cherry plum

Buzzard

Chiffchaff

Coot

Cormorant

Heron

Long-Tailed Tit

Mute Swan

Willow

Willow

Woodpigeon

First Visit to a New Reserve

Cress Marsh on the outskirts of Stallingborough is one of three local mitigation sites established to mitigate against wild land that has been used for industry.  It is wet meadow land with excavated scrapes with shingle banks.  I had had a permit to visit the site for about three months but not had the opportunity so this was a first exploratory visit.  I parked up and wandered curiously along the well made-up path to the hide in the centre of the reserve.  And what an excellent hide. With 360 degree viewing it enables views of most of the site.  It was only when I opened the north facing window that I realised how cold the strong northerly wind was. The two highlights of the session were green sandpiper and a trio of stock doves.  There were also good views of a roe deer buck with two does.

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Green Sandpiper

Roe Deer

It Feels Like Spring on the Local Patch

 It feels like spring on the local cemetery patch today.  In recent days I have seen lesser celendine and coltsfoot in flower and hawthorne leaves opening.  In days gone by Lincolnshire people used to refer to young hawthorne leaves as 'bread and cheese' and children would pick and eat them.  These young leaves can, indeed, be picked and added to salads or used to make tea.  Today in the cemetery crocus, daffodils, primroses, aconites and snowdrops were all in flower.  Birds were very active, especially chaffinches and it was good to hear them singing again.  I enjoyed watching a pair of buzzards soaring and displaying over the cemetery, presumably the pair that nest in The Dead Wood or Carr Plantation.  I was pleased to spot the goldcrest yet again and was pleasantly surprised to see a female great spotted woodpecker in the woodland burial ground.

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Buzzard

Dunnock

Goldfinch

Goldfinch

Great spotted woodpecker (female)

A First on East Halton Marsh

 Expecting the worst from Storm Otto, I woke this morning prepared for a day indoors.  However, on getting out, the BBC had over-egged it again and although windy there was nothing like storm force winds.  There was mixed sun and cloud with a temperature of 14C.  Brian and I drove down Marsh Lane towars Winter's Pit again full of anticipation, but third time lucky in the field before the pit wa found a large flock of greylag geese with 12 russian white-fronts and a single pink-footed goose.  The white-fronts have been around for a few weeks now but on our previous two visits we had not connected with them.  In fact, by the time we returned to the car 3 hours later they had moved on to another part of the marsh.  There are two races of white-fronted geese: Russian and Greenland - a sub-species.  Greenland white-fronts winter in Ireland and Scotland while Russian white-fronts winter in England and Wales.

Feeling elated, we ticked off everything we could see around the pit and then headed off along the track at the back of the marsh.  Large flocks of lapwing kept wheeling around in the air providing exciting displays and on the marsh itself were large numbers of wigeon, their whistling calls having a true feel of winter wilderness to them.  There were good numbers of teal and mallard about too.  Skylarks were singing well and there was a feel of spring in the air despite the wind.

At Skitter Ness we wandered a little further along the back before dropping down into its shelter for our christmas cake and tomato soup.  We were entertained during lunch by watching a marsh harrier hunting the reed beds.

Lunch over, we headed back, finding plenty more teal feeding along the river bank and good numbers of noisy redshank along with a single avocet.  Returning to Winter's we managed to locate coot, little grebe, blue tit and robing to take our total count to over 30.  We had also seen roed deer and a brown hare, so another cracking day.

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Avocet

Black-tailed godwit

Black-tailed godwit

Greylag geese with one russian white-front.

Russian White-Fronted Geese

Russian White-Fronted Geese

                                            Russian White-Fronted Geese resting

Pink-Footed Goose

Wigeon