The end of Sheffield Wildlife…

I’m afraid this is the end for Sheffield Wildlife! Don’t worry though, I’ve started a brand new blog over at Tumblr called Steel City Birding.

I decided it was time for a change, and to alter the focus from general wildlife musings, to a more bird-orientated blog, which it always really was anyway. Of course any interesting mammals, insects and other things may get a mention, but birds will be the main subject matter of the new blog.

Apart from a birding diary, I’ll also be posting about the improvements I’m making in my birding. I’ve got to the stage where I know enough that non-birders I know see me as some kind of birding expert, but in reality I’ve a hell of a lot to learn. There’s plenty for me to improve on, and I’ll be showing the gap in my knowledge and challenges I come across honestly and openly, and hopefully sharing some of the learning as I go on. It’ll hopefully make sense as I do it.

Finally, I’ll be using the blog as a bit of a scrapbook, sharing photos, links and other bits and bobs along the way. I may even go off-topic and post a few bits of music that you may like to listen to while you browse the birdy stuff.

I’ve started the new blog at this time of year because September is looming, one of the best times for birding, and hopefully I’ll have something interesting to share soon. If you have any comments or suggestions then please get in touch.

So if you have any bookmarks to Sheffield Wildlife then please change them. This old blog will remain online as an archive. See you over in the new one!

For the Whin!

Whinchats are birds that are fairly easy to see around my neck of the woods, but I’ve been too lazy to go up and see them so far this year. Last night I remedied this with a visit to Broomhead Moor, with my mate Andy, a frequent wanderer of that area who managed to locate them for us pretty much to the nearest stalk of bracken! We watched a family party – a pair and at least two juvs – flitting around the rocks and bracken, and had a great added bonus of the mountain hare below snuffling around. Crap photo alert…

Mountain hare, honest…

Elsewhere curlew were still about in fairly good numbers, a buzzard soared overhead, ridiculous amounts of red grouse were flushed from the heather as we walked, and a golden plover called from somewhere not too far away. At Broomhead Res a grey wagtail was in the conduit, and a few new fluffly mallard ducklings were around.

A nice bonus on the way back was a little owl perched on a pole near High Bradfield.

EDIT – just noticed a horrible typo where I’d typed “hair” instead of “hare”. If anyone sees me they have my full permission to smack me on the back of my head for that.

One of those days…

It’s been one of those days where you feel you don’t really see much, but when you get back you realise you’ve seen plenty… one of the curses of keeping a birding year list is that you end up by this time of year, if you’re not careful, getting annoyed by the lack of new stuff coming your way, feeling like there’s nothing interesting around when in fact you’re seeing as much good stuff as ever. Of course there’s way more to life than keeping geeky lists, plenty to see and enjoy wherever you go, and the minute you stop realising that is when you’re on a slippery slope towards turning birdwatching into trainspotting…

This morning I started off with a trip up to Leash Fen. It was mainly to get a photo to illustrate a forthcoming birding walk I’m doing for Birdwatching magazine, but obviously also to have a look what’s about. It was fairly quiet on the Fen itself, with only a male stonechat standing out, and the usual meadow pipits cheeping away. I walked up towards the bus stop at Owler Bar, through the woodland to the east of Ramsley Moor, with jays, siskins and a great spotted woodpecker in the woods, and a calling common buzzard above.

Near Owler Bar I was surprised to look across the road and see this beautiful pair nonchalantly milling about in the ferns!..

I got back to town about lunchtime and decided to have a quick hop up to Orgreave Lakes, where a yellow-legged gull had recently been reported. That’s the other curse of year lists – squinting through gull flocks! I got there (briefly annoyed looking at Birdguides that a bloody stone curlew had turned up at Beely Moor now I was way over the other side of the city!) and soon found the flock of lesser black-backed gulls that was keeping their yellow-legged cousin company. Scanning through I came across a gull the same size and shape, with a much lighter mantle (but not, I thought at the time, light enough for a herring gull…), fired off a quick photo, and then suddenly they startled at something and the flock took to the air, half of which disappearing off site taking the “yellow-leg” with them.

Zooming in to the photo I really can’t rule out herring, especially as there’s no sign of yellow legs on the bird. From what you can make out on the pixellated monstrosity there is a hint of quite long primary projection, but the bill looks less chunky and the mantle colour not that much darker than the BHGs around it, suggesting herring. And of course, YLG’s legs usually stand out a mile off… The jury’s out, and so no year tick for me then!

It was dull and drab weatherwise, so not a lot of insects around, but it was good to see plenty of gatekeepers around, which weren’t on the wing yet when I was at the site two weeks ago.

A quick scan of Catcliffe Flash aftwards revealed a perched kingfisher, a few pochards, and the usual cast of great crested and little grebes, cormorants, herons and juvenile coots.

And I still felt disappointed by the day’s birding! But writing this blog post has made me realise I’ve had a great day out. OK my list is unchanged. I dipped the yellow-legged gull (a species I saw hundreds of in Italy in May!). I didn’t get to see the stone curlew due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I got kinfishers, woodpeckers, buzzards, stonechats, cormorants, herons, grebes, pochards, siskins, jays… some of the best birds the country has to offer, plus butterflies and some beautiful red deer! That is a good day by anyone’s standards, and that’s what it’s all about.

Proper Gropper Heartstopper

(Note – I didn’t take this picture! It’s by Roger Sanderson on Flickr, and used under the Creative Commons Licence.)

A few nights ago I had a walk up to White Lee Moor on a tip off where to find a reeling grasshopper warbler. Although I have heard one reeling once before, it’s probably the commonest bird in the local area that’s still a “bogey” for me, and I was quite keen to actually see one.

Walking up from High Bradfield, with a nice large flock of around 30 lapwings entertaining me on the way, I got to the part of the moor, near the large transmitter mast, where the grasshopper warbler was. The air seemed full of linnets twittering away, a stonechat alarmed somewhere in the vegetation, and pheasants and red grouse could be heard from the surrounding moorland. Before long, at 8pm, the umistakable reel of a grasshopper warbler piped up, no further than about 10 feet away from where I was stood.

For a very frustrating hour I tried to pinpoint the sound, looking for the drab brown bird perched in the reeds, to no avail. Grasshopper warblers rotate their heads while singing, making it almost impossible to get a fix on exactly where their insect-like song is coming from. Eventually I saw a small, brown LBJ flit from the reeds into the base of another clump of vegetation, and soon the reeling began again from the direction this bird had travelled in. Of course it’s quite possible I caught a glimpse of one of the many linnets that were around, but I’m 90% sure it was the”gropper” I caught a glimpse of, and it’s getting chalked up as a rather unsatisfactory “tick”. Hopefully I’ll get better views of a showier singer before long, but I do feel I had a typical grasshopper warbler encounter up there on the moors!

Thorne, North Cave and Blacktoft

North Cave Wetlands

On Saturday I had a trip out eastwards, starting at Thorne to finally pick up turtle dove, a species that has managed to elude me up to now, despite several attempts. After a few laps of the rhododendron path we finally heard one calling, and got brief views of two tiny doves, wing-clapping softly as they took off, flying over our heads. It’s a “tick”, but I still want better views!

From there on to North Cave, where apart from three avocets, a couple of common terns and some oystercatchers, there wasn’t too much of interest bird-wise, so we moved on to Blacktoft Sands, picking up bearded tit for the year as they flitted around the bases of the reeds, as well as black-tailed godwit, spotted redshank, ruff, dunlin, ringed plover, little egret and the obligatory marsh harrier. I did see one interesting looking wader at the back of the Marshland hide that looked promising for wood sandpiper, but it vanished before I had chance to scrutinise it fully to rule out juvenile redshank. Ah well.

As always this time of year, the most photographic subjects were the insects…

Emerald Damselfly (Thorne)

Large Skipper (Thorne)

Four-spotted Chaser (North Cave)

Comma (North Cave)

Orgreave

This morning I had a trip up to Orgreave Lakes to have a look if a black-necked grebe that has been there for the last couple of days was still there. On the way to the bus station I had a bit of a meander round the City Centre riverside, picking up a few sand martins by Blonk Street, and the rather weird-looking leucistic carrion crow by Millsands, plus a couple of new broods of mallards.

Weird crow…

At Orgreave the BNG was a no-show, but there was plenty more to see, including ringed plovers, great crested grebes, hundreds of swifts with a few house and sand martins mixed in, and loads of singing skylarks and whitethroats.

Orgreave

I had a walk to Treeton Dyke to see if the BNG had relocated there, but the water-skiers put paid to anything interesting lurking on the lake, with just a few sedge and reed warblers shuttling away in the reeds for interest.

On the bus on the way up I thought I caught a glimpse of a little egret on Catcliffe Flash, so I had a walk down there and sure enough there was one lurking. They’re still a fairly scarce bird in the Sheffield area, and always nice to see locally.

Also on the lake were loads of family parties of coots, a great crested and little grebe, a pochard, and a quick flypast from (believe it or not!) my first kingfisher since New Year’s Day!

And finally, it’s getting into that time of year when I start posting insect shots, and here’s a couple. I’m not 100% sure I’m right with my dragonfly ID, so any corrections would be much appreciated.

Ringlets (there were loads of these about)

Black-tailed Skimmer?

Crepuscular Spectacular

OK, maybe spectacular’s the wrong word, but I had a good trip up to Wharncliffe Heath with my mate Andy the other night on my annual hunt for nightjars. It was a lovely evening weather-wise, but foolishly we picked the Longest Day, meaning the timescale between nightjars showing and the last bus from Deepcar to Hillsborough was worryingly narrow!

The usual support act of roding woodcocks and hooting tawny owls was present and correct, but we didn’t get as much as a chur from the nightjars until around 10.45. After a few flight calls one finally piped up with its churring somewhere deep in the heathland, and just before we had to peg it for the bus a half-arsed handclap from me lured one briefly into view, silhouetted as it alighted on a tree branch before zooming off back into the gloom.

Not the best sighting I’ve ever had, but it always feels a privilege to be in the presence of these eerie birds as they lurk in the shadows. One the way back we had views of probable Daubenton’s bat and noctules, and the usual newts as we poked our torches into the pools.

Baby boom…

Last Wednesday I took the morning off work to finish my BBS survey at Damflask. Not a lot to report, except loads of juv coal, blue and great tits around, and a family party of nuthatches. On the way back I stopped off in the Loxley Valley and came across a couple of grey partridges at Old Wheel Farm… not a very common bird in this part of Sheffield, and a very unexpected “patch tick”!

On Saturday I had a walk round the Agden area, the highlights of which being good views of a redstart, a green woodpecker, several whitethroat, and smatterings of juvenile chaffinches and willow warblers.

Today I had a scan of Tyzack’s Dam (at Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet) for mandarin ducks. They didn’t take much finding, with a female with no fewer than nine ducklings lurking on the bank, and at least seven other adults milling about, the males looking quite scruffy in their eclipse plumage.

The weekend

I’m being vague with location due to some sensitive species, but not a bad tally on a daytrip this weekend with grey partridge, yellow wagtail, corn bunting and common crane(!) added to the year list. I was hoping for woodlark and turtle dove in the area I was in, but the crane more than made up for it.

A couple of pics, including a nice yellowhammer that was showing well while asserting the fact it would quite like a small amount of bread, but would prefer it be be delivered without any accompanying cheese.

Northumberland 2010

At the weekend Laura and I had our now annual trip to Northumberland. We started on Friday with pleasant, if a bit windy, weather, and pootled about Bamburgh for a bit, where we watched sandwich terns and eiders, as well as distant guillemots. After checking in at our B&B at Beadnell, we had a quick walk on the bay there and saw the usual little terns and arctic terns in the tern colony there.

Saturday was a scorcher! We started out with a trip to Amble, where there were some very obliging eiders in the harbour…

…while we waited for the boat to Coquet Island. On the way out there we encountered large groups of puffins flying overhead, as well as the occasional guillemot and cormorant.

When we got to Coquet we saw more sandwich and arctic terns, plus many common terns, and the species I’d gone there specifically to see – roseate tern. A cracking species, which was surprisingly easy to spot among the throng.

We decided to go on for boat trip number two, to the Farnes, but disaster struck and the car shuddered to an almost halt on the way, with a big scary warning light blinking on the dashboard and a peculiar smell drifting from the engine. Laura managed to limp it to Seahouses, and we were lucky enough to find a garage which was willing to fix it, but it was by this time too late for a Farnes trip. Ah well, there’s always Sunday, we thought. While stranded we loaded up with chips, and I spent some time scoping the Farnes from the shore, picking out a few puffins and razorbills in the sea.

Sunday arrived, and despite the gorgeous day beforehand a thick mist hung over the coast. We started the day with a walk to Low Newton, which was fairly uneventful, and to be honest a bit cold! We did find a gannet drifting around on the sea close to the shore, though…

We decided we would give the Farnes a go after all, despite the weather, and we had a rather bleak trip out in the fog, although it’s always good to be surrounded by seals, auks, terns and the rest as you go out. As we got to Inner Farne, the rain started, and we ended up getting quite drenched. Running the gauntlet of the pecky arctic terns, we made it to the cliffs to see some rather damp, depressed-looking seabirds, before spending much of the rest of the time on the island sheltering in the National Trust shelter!

There were plenty of nice baby birds on show, though, in fact more chicks than I remember seeing on any of my previous visits there.

Kittiwakes…

Shags…

Razorbills…

Damp, depressed, puffins…

So very much a weekend of two halves, with the great British summer proving itself to be the strange and frustrating beast it always does! It has to be said though that despite the car trouble and the grim weather on Sunday, it was still a great weekend, and a trip to the Farnes is always fantastic whatever the weather.