Full house - 16th June '25

Today was one of those days when you really get the feeling the gods are with you. After recent medical stuff it was my first day back working in a couple of weeks, and the forecast was for warm sunshine - ideal. Before I set off, however, I brought in the recorder from the back garden here in suburban York and checked the spectrogram over breakfast....

 

Snoozin' Nightjar - what a beauty

It's the time of year when the only sane reason to bother continuing with nocmig is for something seasonally special - perhaps a Quail, even a rare heron, or an odd wader. Amazingly, the last three nights have registered Quail on the first two and then Avocets last night (the only birds recorded...). I'm pretty sure it's a rare York area record, and my first ever on nocmig anywhere, after five years recording on the coast.

Fun fun fun with the Ortolaan (affect Kraftwerk voice for this line)

So, a very good start. A diversion on my way up onto the moors blocked my route via Pickering and pushed me further eastwards along the A64, and much nearer Wykeham as it happened - where the Ortolan has been reported over the last day or two. Probably not a bird I'd have gone for on its own, but seeing as I was over there, up to the Raptor Viewpoint for a short while seemed like a good idea.

Lapwing chick

It was - almost immediately, there it was, with its male Yellowhammer suitor (they've been observed copulating, and nesting material has been gathered....) - excellent, and perhaps unique, given those circumstances. On the way back to the car, I was kindly told of a roosting Nightjar on a logpile not two minutes away. Again, excellent - what wonderful birds they are, and the opportunity to see one snoozing nearby should never be skipped.

Adder

Having already had a relative blinder without reaching mid-morning, I arrived up at my survey site more than happy with the day's gifts. But there was more to come, with one of those one-treat-after-another runs that included displaying Hobbies, Cuckoos everywhere, wader chicks (including Curlews), Small Pearl-bordered Fritillaries wherever I looked, a gorgeous (and very tame) young female Adder on my path, a day-churring Nightjar in the midday sun, and to cap it all, a close fly-by female Hen Harrier carrying prey.