Playing catch up with the blog!!

Well it's been over a month since our last blog post........this really isn't good enough. So below is a brief round up of what we've seen......which, to be honest, isn't very much.

 

The big one for us was a Squacco Heron which turned up briefly at Saltholme...cracking bird.

 

 

A female Black Grouse was a surprise find on a trip to Smardale

 A young Oystercatcher was a delight

A cracking Redshank on it's moorland breeding site.

 

 

The butterflies at Smardale were starting to show, with Brown Argus in abundance.

A series of Orchids seen on our visit to Smardale.



A visit to Bempton / Flamborough was a nice day out but nothing special turned up.

 Gannet

 

 Painted Lady

 Puffin

Turtle Dove at Sutton Bank

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 Little Tern back on their breeding ground

 Nice Meadow Pipit

Sandwich Tern

 





Stonechat were showing well at a variety of locations and looking good.

This Black-winged Pratincole in Northumberland was excellent to see and was one of the highlights of the month .



A Visit to see the Duke.

It was a warm and sunny day onSaturday so off across the moors to see if we could see any Duke of Burgandy butterflies.  Little did we know how many there would be -the most we have ever seen up on the North Yorks Moors, at least 20 plus we would say.

 

 

 

 We could however find only one Green Hairstreak on a sunny bank next to the road on the way back to Osmotherly.

 A few Dingy Skippers with the Dukes though.

 We came across two broods of Curlew chicks, this one was very obliging as it didn't hide in the grass.

Housemartins are using the old kennel building at Hawnby for their nests.

North York Moors

Visited one of my favourite sots at the weekend up on the moors.

A very obliging Cuckoo.



Two flying around at one point.

 



Lots of Spotted Flycatchers around too.  A lovely bird to see.

Plenty of Redstarts too but only one Pied Flycatcher seen.



Red-Throated Pipit at Seaton Common

Another lifer for us on Sunday when an excellent Red-Throated Pipit turned up on Seaton Common although distant it was good to see.

 

 

 

 

Another Two for the Year List and a Lifer.

On Sunday we enjoyed a brilliant day at Blacktoft Sands.
The Marsh Harriers were performing well and so too were the Montague's Harriers, a bird we had never seen before even though they were at a distance.

Montague's Harriers

Marsh Harrier

Little Grebe

It was good to see the Turtle Doves back in our local area, one of my favourite birds to see especially as there seem so few of them around now.

 

We watched them from a distance whilst enjoying our picnic then on the way home heard there were Dotterel at Danby Beacon.  Too tired to go that night so went the next evening to view a male and female bird at a distance, nice to see though.