Woke up really late this morning after having a nightmare where my life was completely screwed up by having a baby (not me: my wife). I couldn’t get this spectre out of my head, so I went out for a walk and some birdwatching despite a howling gale. In fact, the wind had been so bad that the TV aerial blew down overnight, to be left dangling from the telephone cables. Strangely enough the reception has been improved by this, so it can stay there until someone else decides to do something about it.

Anyway, at around midday I got into the car and headed for Swinemoor Common, another one of Beverley’s old commons (See below for map). Swinemoor gets a few dog walkers on it, but it isn’t heavily used and it consists of unimproved grassland and scrub. The piece of the common between the large drain and the Hull river gets really wet in the winter and can be good for waders in the spring. I was hoping that there were a few winter waders around.

The common is really wet at the moment and if this continues, birdwatching here in the spring could be really good. However, not much at all today; lots of Lapwings, which were very flighty, and around 200 Black-headed Gulls with a few Common Gulls. Scanning around revealed almost nothing, so I decided not to extend the walk beyond playing around with my digital camera. Took a few shots of the common, you can see how wet it is from this one.

Some bloke with his dog began shouting at me for some reason. I didn’t bother to respond, he didn’t seem to have polite intentions and I can’t be bothered to speak to rude idiots, so I left. The guy tried to intercept me by cutting across the common and seemed to get stuck in the mud.

Other species I saw were:

Blackbird, Rook, Woodpigeon, Starling, Collared Dove, Mallard, Moorhen, Kestrel and Cormorant; as uninspiring a list as you’ll ever see!

After spending all morning on the computer doing college work, I managed to get enough energy summoned to go for a walk. As the weather was quite dreadful, strong winds with showers, I opted for a location nearby where a short stroll was an option.

Beverley has a number of ancient commons, and today I went to probably the least visited of these and least manicured: Figham Common. In the map above I’ve shaded Figham common green; it’s just to the south-east of Beverley.

The common is bisected by a large drain, and bordered to the east by the Hull river. The land between these two watercourses is inundated with rushes and I had two Short-eared Owls there in February 2006. I was hoping for something similar today.

Well, what a disappointment. After about 5 minutes I was questioning the wisdom of this trip; the wind was outrageous and, predictably, all the birds were hiding away in the undergrowth. With my mind wandering to the warmth of my flat and tea with scones I was awakened by a large flock of Fieldfares. They all had particularly colourful breasts, but scan as I might I couldn’t find any other species.

That was about the story of the walk really; wind and Fieldfares with a bunch of Redwings thrown in. In fact, the whole common was filled with both these species with probably about 300 Fieldfares and 250 Redwings. A flock of about 40 Linnets and a lone male Yellowhammer were the only other birds to make me stop and look.

So that was it, my exercise for the day. Not one of the most memorable day’s birding.