Yesterday morning I went to Swinemoor Common again hoping for some more spring migrants. Once again I wasn't disappointed despite the rapidly disappearing water - not much more than a few puddles left now.
The first bird of interest was a male Wheatear next to the Beverley-Barmston drain, a different bird than the two I saw previously as it was much more brightly marked. As I approached what is left of the wet areas I heard the screeching of a Swift - the first of the year! It was quickly joined by 3 more and a group of 10 House Martins. 3-4 Swallows were also flying around.
I found a good place to sit and scan the common; this turned out to be a good idea as a number of birds were moving through. 5 Shelduck were present today along with about 20 Lapwings - many of them on nests now. A group of about 300 Golden Plovers dropped in and began to bathe themselves and a Little Ringed Plover came in very close. This bird seemed to be a first year bird as it still hasn't reached full adult plumage. However, two more Little Ringed Plovers further away seemed so happy with Swinemoor that they began copulating! Two Redshank were foraging in the wet grass and whilst watching them the same two Wheatears in the same place as Saturday made an appearance as did the male Yellow Wagtail.
Two drumming Snipe were very noisily displaying - Swinemoor is a very good place to watch male Snipe perform an aerial battle.
I decided to look around the scrubby areas of the common finding 7 Willow Warblers, a Lesser Whitethroat and plenty of common birds: Starling, Blackbird, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Linnet, Pied Wagtail, Collared Dove, Meadow Pipit, Skylark etc. The scrubby areas of Swinemoor are a good place to look for plants and I took some photos of some interesting ones:
The first bird of interest was a male Wheatear next to the Beverley-Barmston drain, a different bird than the two I saw previously as it was much more brightly marked. As I approached what is left of the wet areas I heard the screeching of a Swift - the first of the year! It was quickly joined by 3 more and a group of 10 House Martins. 3-4 Swallows were also flying around.
I found a good place to sit and scan the common; this turned out to be a good idea as a number of birds were moving through. 5 Shelduck were present today along with about 20 Lapwings - many of them on nests now. A group of about 300 Golden Plovers dropped in and began to bathe themselves and a Little Ringed Plover came in very close. This bird seemed to be a first year bird as it still hasn't reached full adult plumage. However, two more Little Ringed Plovers further away seemed so happy with Swinemoor that they began copulating! Two Redshank were foraging in the wet grass and whilst watching them the same two Wheatears in the same place as Saturday made an appearance as did the male Yellow Wagtail.
Two drumming Snipe were very noisily displaying - Swinemoor is a very good place to watch male Snipe perform an aerial battle.
I decided to look around the scrubby areas of the common finding 7 Willow Warblers, a Lesser Whitethroat and plenty of common birds: Starling, Blackbird, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Linnet, Pied Wagtail, Collared Dove, Meadow Pipit, Skylark etc. The scrubby areas of Swinemoor are a good place to look for plants and I took some photos of some interesting ones:
Water Crowfoot
At the southernmost end of Swinemoor is a very damp and spongy area of grass which attracts Whimbrel every year and yesterday a group of 9 were feeding amongst the Starlings and a male Yellowhammer sat calling in a small bush.
Walking back to the car a few Reed Buntings were noisily calling, two Long-tailed Tits were feeding in a tree and the Lapwings were busily chasing Carrion Crows away from their nests. The last birds to add to the list before returning to the car were 2 first summer Lesser Black-backed Gulls and a giant Mistle Thrush.
No comments:
Post a Comment