A lovely sunny morning saw me out on Swinemoor again. Although it was cold, with little wind it was quite pleasant after a little walking had warmed me up. A large flock of Fieldfares and a few Redwaings greeted me as I came on to the common and a few Woodpigeons flew out of the hawthorn scrub.

On the floods the number of species has now declined, seemingly the main autumn passage for shorebirds has already passed, but good numbers of Lapwings (about 70) and Redshank ( betwen 20-25) were present. On my circuit of the common I flushed up half a dozen or so Snipe and saw at least another half dozen feeding and resting in the flooded grass. The, by now, regular 5 Curlews were busy feeding in the company of their friends the Moorhens in their usual spot near the ditch. To me this seems atypical of Curlew behaviour, to be close to a ditch with tall vegetation and plenty of trees in it – wading birds usually prefer a much more open environment. A number of Tree Sparrows were calling from a large tree in this ditch too.

Walking back along the river wall I managed to spot a single male Ruff amongst the Redshank and Lapwings, and a small group of 9 Black-headed Gulls flew in with a lone Common Gull.

A couple of Meadow Pipits lurked around in the tussocky grass and a huge flock of Starlings also came in to feed. The final birds of the walk were 2 first winter Lesser Black-backed Gulls flying overhead – northwards.

This morning I took a short walk around Burton Bushes, a small area of semi-natural ancient woodland on Beverley’s Westwood Common. It isn’t a particularly rich area in terms of birdlife or ground flora, although there is a little of each characteristic of woodlands with the best bird being Marsh Tit which breeds there.

Today however, all I saw were crowds of Blue Tits and Long-tailed Tits, a few Great Tits and a couple of Robins, Blackbirds, a Magpie and a couple of Redwings. Rather too many Grey Squirrels than is healthy for such a small patch of woodland were busy collecting food, but the most interesting things were the fungi growing on lumps of dead and dying wood.

Unfortunately I didn’t see any of the nice big colourful fungi but I did get some reasonable photos of a variety of wierd ones. With the poor light it was a bit tricky to get good photos with just a compact camera and out of 60 shots taken I only got 11 acceptable pictures, some of which are a little blurrier than I would have hoped for.

I haven’t a clue what any of these species are, so if anyone knows their identity, please let me know.

Furthering our ongoing research into ducks and their affinity to bread, my wife and I went back to Hornsea Mere armed with bread, seed and chocolate donuts. First of all we tried throwing bread, which was very predictably well recived by Ducks, Geese and Swans alike. Coots also seem partial to bread, although they don’t do well when it comes to fight over a slice. Carrion Crows, Jackdaws and Black-headed Gulls also take bread when it is available although they don’t seem keen to get in amongst the ducks. Ultimately, though, size counts and when Mute Swans get together they are able to grab a monopoly on bread and aren’t scared to stick their heads into a car to get at it.

The ducks, geese and swans at Hornsea Mere must be suffering from the obesity trend that is becoming a problem in the Uk judging by the number of people coming to feed them, and it is worth noting here, in the interest of ornithology, that our Tesco’s super budget brown bread seemed to be bottom of the list of preferences. The seed was definitely the most prefered food here with a rugby scum-like battle over it whenever I threw out a handful. However, Canada Geese show a marked preference for chocloate donuts, which were avoided by all other birds. It is likely that waterbirds do not often get the opportunity to taste chocolate donuts, but why Canada Geese have an affinity for them demands more investigation. Perhaps it is something to do with their transatlantic origin.

Having got a little bored with the ducks I started to throw pieces of bread into the sky for the gulls to catch and within seconds there was a cloud of them above our heads – a dangerous situation. In ana attempt to get some pictures I just pointed my digital camera towards them and held down the button when on action mode. I got some reasonable photos after selective cropping and enhancing in photoshop – this is the magic of digital cameras, even photographic neanderthals like myself can get some good shots.