Enough sunshine today to tempt me outside, just the short distance to Figham Common. Walking along the river flood defenses I could see that many of the fields to the east were flooded by a few centimetres of water. I expected to see some birds feeding on these such was the extent of the flooding – but nothing. I can only imagine that these fields which are usually used for sheep receive too much fertilizer and flood too infrequently for the invertebrates that wading birds such as Lapwings favour.

A Cormorant was in the river and must have found a very good fishing spot because it refused to fly away, even when I was only a few metres away – it simply continued to fish, catching something every 20 seconds or so.

The bushes and shrubs at the far end of the common were alive with Greenfinches, Chaffinches, Blue Tits, Great Tits and Long-tailed Tits, with lots of Blackbirds foraging under a row of mature beech trees; but just one Redwing and no Fieldfares. Interesting to me was a Treecreeper calling ina hawthorn bush, having seen one in the unlikely position of in a lone bush in the middle of flooded grass the last time I was at Figham. This location was not so wierd, but this bird seems to have decided that 10 beech trees and some hawthorn scrub constitues a woodland.

Plenty of Skylarks were singing, a few Reed Buntings seemed to be pairing and a nice male Yellowhammer was almost singing – he must think that spring is here already.

On my way back to the car I managed to slip in the mud and rip the skin on my left hand on a piece of barbed wire. The spike went right in and I was caught on the fence. When I unspiked myself I noticed that the barb was not only rusty but covered in cow’s hair and mud. Having not received a tetnus injection for 12 years I had the inconvenience of going to the doctor for an injection. Amazingly I was in and out in under 5 minutes having had the injection. Wow! This goes a small way towards restoring my faith in the NHS. There is still a long way to go though as they messed up my hernia operation last year.

Just got back from a couple of hours walking around Swinemoor Common, Beverley. It wasn’t really a birdwatching walk, I was with three friends from college and we were inspecting the place for our management plan assignment. We came up with ideas like retaining the surface water through spring and summer, and grazing the grassland through late summer and autumn to manage it for wetland birds. The idea is to keep horses off of it through the breeding season to allow Lapwings and Snipe to raise their chicks without the threat of trampling. None of this is actually going to happen of course, it’s purely hypothetical.

Other idea we had were a bit of selective tree planting, nest boxes for tree sparrows, roosting boxes for bats and managing visitor access by encouraging them to use an interpreted trail.

However, there’s always time to look for birds and we saw quite a good number of Golden Plover, a couple of hundred in total, 40-50 Lapwings, 2 Snipe and 5 Redshank. Alongside were about 40 Common Gulls, 10-20 Black-headed Gulls and 2 Herring Gulls. A Grey Heron flew over too and a Kestrel hunting kept disturbing the waders and gulls.

Having finished a peice of coursework, due in later this week, I found some time for a quick walk at Figham Common. What a bright sunny day it was too, but a wintery breeze finally brought some seasonal temperatures. I only had an hour an a half; from 2-3.30pm but there were plenty of birds around. However, the common is very muddy, there aren’t really any proper paths other than along the river, so decent boots are a good idea or you end up with cold, wet feet – like I did.

The first bird I spotted was a Barn Owl, hunting over the rushy part of the common. Figham seems to be a good place for this species, I’ve seen at least one here on all but one visit. As it neared a clump of trees a flock of about 60 Fieldfares flushed out and flew away making a racket. Just a little further along a male Stonechat sat on a fence post and was shortly joined by a female.

Unfortunately, the pasturemasters seem intent on keeping the common drained, I’m not really sure why, there are only a few cattle grazed here in the summer, and where tractors have been used to dig drainage channels it is difficult to pass without ending up to your knees in mud.

I crossed to the western section of Figham where there is very wet pasture, some scrub and a small rushy reedbed (actually it’s greater reedmace). Loads of birds here – hundreds of Redwings and Greenfinches feeding on hawthorn and these were joined by a Goldcrest. Heading towards the wettest area I heard a Treecreeper calling from a lone, and very stunted, hawthorn in the middle of a very boggy area. After some time I finally saw it, having thought that I must be mistaken – surely it could have found some better trees around to creep around on? There are some decent beech trees a few hundred metres away, they would have been much more suitable.

At the reedmace patch 15 Teal and about 35 Snipe were flushed – there always seem to be lots of snipe here – and a large female Sparrowhawk flew overhead. Not much else on the way back, just a Meadow Pipit and a first winter Reed Bunting, although there were more excellent views of the Barn Owl which didn’t seem to mind me being there.

A few Herring Gulls were calling overhead but I was too busy unsticking myself from the mud and trying to untangle myself from thorns and barbed wire to bother to take more than a quick glance.

As usual for my birdwatching walks near Beverley, I was the only person there. I guess the other birders are out somewhere better!