Champions of the Flyway!

Monday, January 6, 2025

Review of the Year, 2024 - part two

Eurasian Brown Bear, Transylvania, May 

This post covers April - June 2024. For January - March, see here; for later in the year, see next posts.
Little Owl, Bay Ness, May 

A very busy three months, which, looking back over everything, seems impossible to squeeze into the required timeframe - but it all somehow happened, and it was all pretty much good stuff....
Spoonbill, Filey Dams, April 

In no particular order, this twelve-week period included ten days guiding in Transylvania, ten days with our third School of Birding in Scotland, a week guiding at Spurn, ten guiding days at Flamborough, a large contract across the North York Moors including over 50 surveys (plus four ongoing survey contracts on both sides of the Humber, and another close to home), training for and then completing my first half-marathon, and moving house. Jesus, I feel tired just thinking about it, let alone trying to summarise it... but here goes:
Wheatear, Filey, 6th April 

April began with ten days mostly surveying, kicking off our Breeding Wader Survey for the North York Moors National Park (as well as several Humber surveys). Extraordinarily, while beginning my transects on the 3rd, I found a very early male Common Redstart and Tree Pipit alongside each other - out-of-habitat migrants in a high spur of farmland jutting into Levisham Moor, in heavy showers... obs-style birding in the sticks!
Male Common Redstart - an early surprise on the Moors 

Off-the-clock birding was sneaked in between work sessions and (often long) training runs; the morning of 6th, for example, being full of the joys of spring on the home patch, with Wheatears, all three hirundines and Yellow Wagtail at Carr Naze....
.... and some really enjoyable vismig sessions from dawn at Muston Sands, which included a second Woodlark of the early spring, as well as good numbers of commoner migrants: After our first in November and our second in February, it was time for our third School of Birding in the Scottish Highlands in mid-April, and what a great ten days it proved to be. I've gone into the minutiae of our Schools before on these pages, but it's fair to say we've very much hit our stride and everyone leaves inspired and enthused, and a better birder in various ways. More here. 
The last week of the month was spent surveying on the Humber and preparing for my half-marathon, which - with my good friends Ana and Owen - I was attempting on my 52nd birthday, the 28th....
Long-tailed impersonating a Mexican wrestler at Filey in April 

A little background - I've been running for about five years now (having never done so, or indeed exercised at all, previously), which I began mainly as a repsonse to try and lower my genetically high cholesterol levels; I've succeeded (but it'll always be a work in progress), and since then I've steadily built up the frequency and total monthly / annual distances covered on my runs.

It's an important part of my lifestyle these days, not just for my physical but also for my mental health, and while I'll never excel with speed or stamina, I like to set myself targets over the course of twelve month periods. This time round, it was to complete the East Yorkshire half-marathon and to raise money for Jean Thorpe Wildlife Rescue - long story short, despite the comically brutal conditions, it was a successful attempt...
... and more importantly, I was able to raise over five and a half grand for Jean and her efforts to rehabilitate raptors and other wildlife, thanks to the donations of many good people (you know who you are, thanks again ;-). Full story here.
Ferruginous Duck and Wallcreeper, Transylvania, May
After a couple of days recovery, it was time to head for Romania, to guide our Birds and Bears ten-day tour in Transylvania. Co-guiding a lovely team with the estimable Bobi, we had a wonderful trip in some of the most beautiful landscapes I've ever seen in Europe, with a fantastic array of birds....

Grey-headed Woodpecker, Romania, May

....and bears! We had exclusive access to a hide in the forests, where we'd no fewer than thirteen putting on an incredible show just inches from us; another unforgettable international guiding experience among many in recent years.
Black Terns (and one White-winged)

I published a series of blogposts of the trip, which can be found here (then click on 'newer post' at the end to see the following ones). 
Toasting our bear success in the forest at midnight!
Came home feeling sick as a dog, but when you're self-employed, you can't afford to be ill (especially during the busiest time of year), so it was straight back into the surveying and guiding here in Yorkshire - mostly up on the Moors (surveying) and at Flamborough (guiding). Before that, however, I noticed a promising ephemeral flash on the train ride home, just north of Filey - and groggily checked it out the following morning, with an instant reward: Promising drift conditions developed during the week, and a scheduled office day on 22nd turned into one of those ever-rarer classic spring fall sessions that can turn an otherwise average spring on a sixpence in just a couple of hours.
Bluethroats, Filey, 22nd May (above and below)

With a front of torrential rain moving through from the continent - with accompanying easterly winds - during the morning, I waited for the heaviest of the rain to ease and hit Carr Naze, the terrestrial, cliff-topping of Filey Brigg, with great anticipation. That anticipation can quickly fade, and most often does - but not on this occasion....
Surrounded by birds (and with the usual lack of birders), it was an absolute blast, with no fewer three Bluethroats and six Red-backed Shrikes in one breathless session - unprecedented, at least this century...! Full story here.
Red-backed Shrikes, Filey, 22nd May (above and below)

Very conveniently, the promising conditions and accompanying continental arrivals continued seamlessly into two days of guiding at Flamborough - talk about timing - and my teams enjoyed fine spoils on the Great White Cape, which included Red-backed Shrikes singing and displaying to each other in the sunshine. (This spring's Flamborough dates are available now, here).
A day off (which was spent viewing a rental property in York, where I'm presently typing from) before the final week of the month guiding at the mighty Spurn Bird Observatory, the first of no fewer than six guiding weeks there in 2024.
Barn Swallow, Spurn

The end of May at Spurn / Kilnsea is always quality, with such a great range of habitats and birding opportunities in such close proximity, and there's always a few special treats thrown in; this year, the raptor migration was excellent and included many red Kites, several Hen Harriers, Merlins and a Honey-buzzard, while Golden Oriole and Purple Heron represented the hoped-for overshoots. (Again, my Spring Spurn dates are now up on the website - have a look here!). Which brings us to June, which (after a few days with family in Wales) was a blur of surveying (most of the month), guiding (end of the month, mainly at the Flamborough seabird colony), and moving house (also end of the month). Of the former, aside from the usual Humber days, it was all about the North York Moors....
Common Snipe chick, North York Moors, June

... where the breeding birds were doing their best to distract from and protect their nests, eggs and offspring. However, they didn't always succeed....
Golden Plover chick (above) and Meadow Pipit nest (below), NY Moors, June

A crazy spring, then, culminating in the last week of June, which was a mix of moving into the new house in York, and travelling back to the coast to guide a succession of my Seabird Evenings at Flamborough. House moving is never stress-free - especially when you're leaving somewhere where you've spent twelve happy years - but we made a pretty good job of it; over on the coast, meanwhile, and the Puffins and their neighbours made all my clients very happy indeed (and why wouldn't they...?).
Juvenile Long-tailed Tits, Flamborough, May
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Friday, January 3, 2025

Review of the Year, 2024 - part one

Waxwing, Bridlington, January

This post covers the period January - March 2024. See upcoming posts for the rest of the year's highlights.
Snow Bunting, January, Filey 

Here we are again, in the deep midwinter, with time to reflect on the last twelve months; a chance for a little reminiscing indulgence, more for my benefit than anything else (as ever), but if you happen to enjoy it too, I'm glad. It's an opportunity for me to revisit the many great birding experiences and adventures I've once again been fortunate to savour, and an opportunity to be grateful for all of them.
Snow and Lapland Buntings, Top Fields, Filey
Corn Bunting, Top Fields, Filey 

The year began with lots of action on my (now ex-) doorstep, specifically in the extensive clifftop stubbles of the Top Fields in Filey. In the period before new year, it'd been very productive (see e.g. here and here), and I'd been checking it regularly, revealing a healthy turnover of seedeaters.
Lapland Bunting, Top Fields, Filey 

Cold, icy, and even genuinely snowy days - a rare thing here on the east coast - made for some especially enjoyable, picturesque birding (see e.g here and here) locally, often in beautiful, clear conditions.
Yellowhammer, Top Fields, Filey 

A source of quality birding right through to the early spring, numbers of Snow Buntings and Lapland Buntings peaked in January (with 56 and 19 respectively), while other species did so subsequently, with highs of 48 Yellowhammers, 245 Skylarks, 352 Linnets, 18 Rock Pipits and 45 Reed Buntings, plus up to five Corn Buntings and two Twite - not bad for one long, muddy clifftop field....
Twite (above) and Scandinavian Rock Pipit (below), Top Fields, Filey, March
Below-zero days locally also yielded plenty of other cold weather movers, including Woodcocks, Jack Snipe, and Long-eared Owl among other highlights.
Bar-tailed Godwit (above) and Woodcock (below)
Forays into the forest on sunny days, often with the old man, were entertaining - specifically for Goshawks, while a Brambling flock at Wykeham nurseries (just south of the Raptor Viewpoint) swelled to a locally exceptional 380 by the end of March:
February saw the publishing of a five-page article I wrote for British Birds magazine, all about my twelve years of patch birding at Filey. Knowing I was on the move in a few months, the article served as a very satisfying and timely bookend to what was an unbelievably productive and enjoyable time, living and breathing birds at a very special place. The article can be accessed (for free) here.
Goshawks in the Yorkshire forests
Waxwings are always a joy, of course, and I had a small flock to myself on a suburban street in nearby Bridlington in early January.
February saw our second School of Birding (after the first, a few months earlier, in November) in the Scottish Highlands, based at the always wonderful Grant Arms Hotel.
Winter is my favourite birding time of year up there, and we had a great week of learning, laughing, birding and bonding - a great team and, happily, a very satisfied one. Many highlights as ever up there, which included both Eagles, both white-winged Gulls, Black Grouse lekking, lots of divers, waders, seaducks and more - but it was hard to beat the displaying Long-tailed Ducks at point-blank range... Full summary here.
Long-tailed Ducks, Burghead, February

Survey work on both sides of the Humber was as enjoyable as ever, with that special mix of post-apocalytic landscapes, comparative solitude and lots of birds:
A Marsh Harrier drifting over killingholme's factories, with the Humber Bridge in the background 

Other excursions included a (kind of) work outing to Tophill Low with Rich, which was excellent, with the long-staying Black-throated Thrush hanging on for us and performing brilliantly, as well as a pristine male Smew and lots of other interest; it's a cracking reserve which I'm looking forward to guiding at in the early spring (see here for details).
... and a nip up the road to see an immaculate breeding plumage Red-necked Grebe in Scarborough: ... not forgetting some fantastic early spring vismig from my favourite spot on the clifftop at Muston Sands, just south of Filey town. An entertainingly bird-filled first quarter, with a very busy, memorable period to follow.....


Bar-tailed Godwit, Filey
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