A pretty quiet October all round; however there were a few twitches going on in the Scottish Isles – fair play to those folks who travelled all those distances by planes, trains and automobiles. But I was quite happy to do some local patch watching and taking the odd journey to the coast. Things did get off to a very good start with a new bird for the photo list – a Pectoral Sandpiper at Filey Dams!!! This bird had been seen on and off for the past few days on the private area of the reserve but it was now showing well on the main pools overlooked by the public hide. So camera and bins packed, myself and my birding mate Alf drove over to Filey about an hours run from Pickering. Sure enough, the Pec’ Sand was showing well and I had a great afternoon photographing this regular visitor to the UK in the Autumn months. The only downside was the bird never came close, hence the distant images. However, despite the distance still a very nice bird to see and photograph too!!
The rest of October was very quiet locally, not much bird activity at all, apart from the occasional night time flock of Pink footed Geese making their south eastwards towards the Humber.One highlight locally was observing some local Jays visiting an Oak tree then staching the Acorns. Usually Jays are very skittish and all you can hear are their scalding calls as you walk through a woodland. However on a local drive down one of the Carr roads I stopped as luck would have it to have a scan round. Within 5 minutes I had a Jay fly over the car only 50 ft away. Within 15 minutes the Jay was flying back in the direction it had come from. Then another bird was sighted and another!!! What was going on?? I took a few photos and realised the birds had acorns in their beaks!! I then followed the birds in a southerly direction and they disappeared into an Oak tree. At least 5 birds were involved raiding the oak – what a pleasure to watch these otherwise shy cautious birds at such close distance.
At the months end I had a family trip out with the Mrs and we visited Harlow Carr at Harrogate. The gardens are a superb place to walk and while away 2-3 hours. The big attraction for me were the Autumn colours . This year we have been very lucky as it has been a very calm Autumn – without any ‘Big Blows.” So the leaves have slowly died losing their chlorophyll gradually and leaving the trees full of stunning gold, orange and brown leaves: Absolutely magical.
