Two big storms have hit the UK recently and they have certainly made their presence felt ; strangely though on consecutive weekends : Storm Ciara hitting us on the 8/9th February and Storm Dennis hitting us on the 15th/16th February. Over the two weekends there was devastating flooding firstly in parts of West Yorkshire with the River Calder being badly affected and then in the Southwest and parts of Mid and South Wales: the Usk and River Severn being badly hit. Locally we we were fine but the Ouse in York rose nearly 5m above its normal height: in old money that is nearly 15ft above normal levels. Needless to say with all this bad weather around not much birding has taken place you could say rain has stopped play – if it wasn’t the rain it was the wind with gales of over 60mph !!
However, it was not all doom and gloom local patch watching in and around Pickering, Thornton Dale and Low Marishes produced some nice birds with a nice flock of 150 Pink Footed Geese seen on the Low Carrs, a beautiful Barn Owl hunting at Howe Bridge just beside the A169 Pickering to Malton road, two wintering Chiff-Chaffs, one Kingfisher and a male Mandarin duck at Thornton Dale and two Little Egrets seen off Westgate Carr Rd as you leave Pickering. A flock of 5 Bean Geese were reported at Castle Howard Lake, unfortunately we never saw them. Apart from birds, small gatherings of Hares were also seen especially off the Marishes road -a sure sign that Spring is not far off !!!
