I went back to Swinemoor this morning to see if the Wood Sandpipers were still present. It seems that the calm weather gave them the opportunity to leave! However, amongst the grass a single Lapwing chick was lurking; the first I’ve seen this year. The Lapwings on Swinemoor always seem to raise a few chicks [...]

This morning I went to investigate a report of Wood Sandpiper from yesterday morning at Swinemoor. Unfortunately the weather was quite rainy, but this rain, over the last few days, has topped up the water levels at Swinemoor quite nicely. What had been reduced to a few small puddles has once again returned to a [...]

On Saturday morning (12/05/07) I went looking for a marsh orchid that had been found by a friend last week. No matter how long I searched for it, I couldn’t find the damned thing! Despite wind and some rain, I did manage to see a few birds. Three Little Ringed Plovers were easily seen as [...]

A brief visit to Swinemoor yesterday revealed that the 2 Little Ringed Plovers were still present, along with 3 Redshank, 2 Oystercatchers and about 10 Lapwings, as well as 2 Shelduck. Lots of Pied Wagtails were present too, but there is now very little water left. Continuing along the river to Eske windy weather meant [...]

Considering the close proximity of Hornsea Mere which can get huge numbers of Little Gulls, particularly in Autumn, it is something of a surprise that I haven’t seen at least one at Eske before. Well, today as soon as I got up to the lake I saw my first Little Gull for the area, just [...]

Another walk to both Swinemoor and Eske turned up some more interesting things. On Swinemoor, Shelduck, Lapwings, Redshank, Snipe and Little Ringed Plover were all still present as were plenty of other common migrants. The still weather meant that lots of birds were out catching insects and this meant that 100s of Swifts were hawking [...]

So infused with enthusiasm was I yesterday morning that instead of going home after my Swinemoor visit, I continued north up the river Hull to Eske/Pulfin Fen. On the way up I didn’t see too much; a distant male Marsh Harrier was being attacked by two Lapwings and a few Swallows were flying around. A [...]