Hornsea Mere

This afternoon I went, with my wife, to Hornsea Mere to feed the ducks - hardly the cutting edge of ornithology but enjoyable anyway. We took some bread and proceeded to be mobbed by a gang of about 20 Mute Swans with a few Canada Geese trying to get into the act. It was quite funny to see the swans pecking any geese or ducks that got near, not to mention pecking each other quite violently at times. My wife and other duck feeders spent most of their time running away from the swans whilst throwing bread down to divert the unwanted attention.

Once the bread was finished we sat in the car to watch other people feeding the birds. Then I remembered some bird seed that was in the car, so I put this out for them to feed on. The seed was full of high energy grains and seeds - what should be high quality food - but it seems the ducks and swans prefer junk food as they continued to chase the bread-weilding duck feeders.

Eventually they worked out that the grain was good and it was interesting to watch swans, geese, ducks, coots and Jackdaws feeding side by side.

Sitting watching the birds for some time revealed a surprising number of species: Mute Swan, Canada Goose, Greylag Goose, Mallard, Tufted Duck, Coot, Moorhen, Oystercatcher, Cormorant, Grey Heron, Herring Gull, Common Gull, Black-headed Gull, Magpie, Jackdaw, Pied Wagtail, Starling, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Mistle Thrush and House Sparrow.

It was very amusing to watch Greylag Geese taking a bath in the lake - flapping in the water, followed by a dive and then popping up back onto the surface like a cork.

One bird was most noticeable by its absence: a Whooper Swan that is usually resident at Hornsea Mere was nowhere to be seen.

Hornsea Seafront

My wife, Srasri, decided she wanted to go for fish and chips at Hornsea after work this afternoon, so off we went to make the most of the late afternoon sun. As usual we had too many chips, so we decided to feed what was left to the gulls.

After a few seconds we had around 50 Black-headed Gulls circling around. It was amazing to watch their aerial acrobatics as they caught the chips in mid-flight. Only once was there nearly a collision when 5 gulls all backed out of making the catch at the last minute with the chip falling into the sea.

We moved further up the seafront to a place where the sun was still on our backs and continued our chip tossing for the gulls. However, most of the chips were missed in flight and fell into the sea before being gobbled up. It became obvious that the sun was in their eyes and they were unable to judge the catching distance properly. We moved back into a shady patch and immediately the gulls catch rate went back up to almost 100%.

Other birds present were lots of Herring Gulls, Common Gulls and a single Lesser Black-backed Gull (graellsii). Also, 5 Red-throated Divers were on the sea and two Cormorants flew past. Interestingly, the Divers were still in winter plumage but the Cormorants had the white leg patch that indicates they are in breeding condition.