Thorne and Potteric

Today me and my old man had a trip out to a couple of sites in the Doncaster area. First off we had a bit of a disaster as we planned on popping in to Hatfield to see if the red-necked grebe is still on Ten Acre Lake. Somehow we managed to fail miserably to locate the site – the instructions I downloaded off the internet are either out of date and the road now closed, or we were being super-thick. Either way we didn’t get to see the grebe and wasted time in the process…

More successful was the next stop of Thorne Moors. This is a National Nature Reserve amd fantastic area of peatlands that yields some cracking species. It is, for example, the nightingale’s most northern breeding site. We didn’t see any of this elusive species, but some of the great birds seen included marsh harrier, hobby (two in the air at once), cuckoo, reed warbler, sedge warbler and stonechat. One of the targets of the trip was turtle dove, which sadly was never seen but we got a tantalising purr from dense branches on the way out of the site. A frustrating, heard-only lifer (now joining grasshopper warbler on this particularly annoying list…).

A couple of pics, which for once are both inverts…

Large Red Damselfly (I think)

The now ubiquitous Painted Lady…

After this it was a trip to Potteric for a whistle-stop tour, with targets of black-necked grebe and lesser whitethroat, which were sadly both dipped. Highlights included ringed and little ringed plovers, redshank, oystercatcher, nesting sand martins, juvenile long-tailed tits, and a particularly showy jay at the feeding station.

I will get the black-necked grebes before the end of the summer, but they’ve eluded me again! A whopping 73 species seen on our travels today, with a full list at the end of this post.

I won’t be posting for a few days, but will hopefully have some good pics and tales to tell when I get back…

Full list:

Swift, woodpigeon, starling, carrion crow, house sparrow, collared dove, jackdaw, magpie, feral pigeon, black-headed gull, rook, mute swan, mistle thrush, blackbird, goldfinch, swallow, skylark, lapwing, chaffinch, greenfinch, willow warbler, whitethroat, chiffchaff, bullfinch, cuckoo, house martin, wren, yellowhammer, kestrel, pheasant, robin, blackcap, mallard, teal, shoveler, reed bunting, pied wagtail, marsh harrier, reed warbler, sedge warbler [heard only], hobby, greylag goose, stonechat, linnet, jay, great spotted woodpecker [heard only], garden warbler [heard only], turtle dove [heard only], sparrowhawk, long-tailed tit, dunnock, great tit, coot, tufted duck, shelduck, gadwall, blue tit, coal tit, kingfisher, moorhen, Canada goose, grey heron, sand martin, redshank, lesser black-backed gull, ringed plover, pochard, little ringed plover, oystercatcher, little grebe, great crested grebe, cormorant, herring gull.