The start of the year went well with a good walk around the local area on New Years Day with my birding mate Alf; we clocked 30 species – highlights included some local Buzzards, Little Egret , 25 roosting Grey Herons, inland roosting Cormorants , Bullfinch and a charming flock of foraging Longtailed Tits. Over the next couple of days we also did a drive around our local patch i.e. the lowland carrs east of Kirby Misperton and the carr lands near Thornton Dale and Yedingham. The amount of flooding on these carr lands was amazing, just a few weeks ago it was arable land and now it looked lake an inland sea!! The surrounding levees were certainly doing their job – almost full to capacity ; the flooding in the area would be devastating if these barriers were not in place! The Carrs from the A169 to Yedingham certainly held some birds with over 400 Greylag Geese, 100s of Wigeon, Teal and Lapwing and perhaps best of all good flocks of Pink footed geese – in all probability the same birds we saw before the festive holidays. In the main flock there were at least 300 birds. It was looking as though we were in for some good counts of wild geese, waders and wildfowl over the coming weeks!! However all those expectations were thrown into disarray on Monday night 4th January as the Government announced another lockdown; non-essential journeys were out – so local birding only and by foot !!! One huge positive about local birding is that you certainly get to know the local bird populations well, the range of species you can find and the odd surprises. Where I live, I am very lucky as open countryside is just a 10 minute walk – literally down the road. Since lockdown earlier this month highlights have included; Great White Egret, Kingfisher, Sparrowhawk, Goldcrest, Tree Sparrow and Barn Owl. I have not yet had Tree Sparrow as a garden visitor but I was thrilled to find a small roost only a short distance from home ; surely it can’t be too long before one visits the garden!! Another very unexpected bonus was to find Barn Owl hunting very close to home !! I have long suspected that some areas on the local carrs could provide excellent hunting grounds for these gorgeous owls. With some persistence, local knowledge and luck we found a couple of owls hunting over the local carrs. After a few more visits and logging the times eventually we had narrowed down a suitable area and patience paid off a Barn Owl was found hunting and a ‘few’ photographs were taken. Lets hope they stay in the area for the foreseeable future -as they always brighten up the dullest day!
