Although I intended to walk to Eske today, I decided to see if there was any flooding on Swinemoor that might attract migrating waders. It turned out that there was a decent amount of water on the common so I strolled out to see what was around.

It turned out to be a good decision: heading south along the Beverley-Barmston drain I heard and then saw a Kingfisher which perched on a hawthorn bush. Also a small number of Redwings were feeding on hawthorn berries along with a large group of Long-tailed Tits foraging for insects. On the floods a group of around 70 Lapwings were feeding and 17 Black-headed Gulls were loafing around. Getting a little closer I spotted a group of Dunlin feeding. I counted 9 birds, most of which seemed to be juveniles. The Dunlin were joined by a single Redshank and at least 12 Snipe were chasing each other around and feeding in the wet grass.

Walking further south along the common large groups of Starlings were flocking and feeding in the mud and a group of about 120 Golden Plover couldn’t decide whether to land or not, circling for about 15 minutes before a small number of them landed.

In some trees I spotted 5 Greenfinches and 3 Tree Sparrows but not much else.

Heading back, northwards along the River Hull, I stopped to take a look at a group of Starlings feeding in flooded grass, and spotted 11 Ruff amongst them. All these birds seemed to be immature with 3 males and 8 females. Also in the rough grass was a Curlew preening and a couple of Mallard. With so many birds feeding in the floods I stopped to look into every damp patch and flushed a second Curlew out as well as a Little Stint. The Stint landed quite close by and revealed itself to be a juvenile bird, possibly the same bird as I saw a few days ago a little further up the river.

Whilst watching the Stint I heard a group of Fieldfares, and scanning the skies I spotted a flock of 10 Fieldfares heading north. Don’t they know they are supposed to be going south? I followed them north going back to the car and on the River Hull flood defences a female Wheatear popped out of the weeds and proceeded to head north also – another disoriented bird!

One down side about Swinemoor at the moment is that it is swarming with scruffy horses which annoyingly hog the tracks and flush out the birds as one tries to watch them.