Following on from April’s lockdown due to the Corona pandemic; birding was restricted to the back garden and local walks for the first two weeks in May. In that time before restrictions were lifted I had set myself a target of seeing 50 birds from the garden whether they were direct visitors to the garden or fly-overs i.e. birds seen from the garden. I can happily say this target was achieved with two great sightings of 2 great birds!!! On May 4th I saw two crows mobbing what I thought was a ‘buzzard’, directly north from my house. Said ‘buzzard’ had narrow wings and a forked tail; A Red Kite!!! A very irregular visitor in Ryedale and a new bird for my garden list!!! That put my garden list for the Lockdown on 49 – surely I will make 50??? But I had to wait another 10 days – until the 14th of May when a Hobby was spotted circling high above the house. The first sighting of the year. Usually I see about 3 Hobbies per year from the garden- usually blasting through about 7oo mph accompanied by heckling House Martins and Swallows who take exception to this magnificent raptor invading their air-space. As from the 13th May Lockdown restrictions were lifted and you were allowed to meet up with one other person, travel as far as you liked for exercise but return home at night to your home address; once again the World was a bigger place!!! Time to get in touch with my birding mate Alf !!! Our first trip out was eventful, there had been intermittent reports of a juvenile White Tailed Sea Eagle seen on the North York Moors …. so with that in mind I set off. And disaster my clutch on my car burnt out !!!! So I did not see the WTSE and my car was now off the road until weekend!!!It wasn’t all doom and gloom on Friday the 15th May I found a pair of Lesser Black Backed Gulls; a new local record for me!!! On Sunday 17th mobile once more, I visited some local upland areas and heard and saw Cuckoo for the first time in nearly 10 years. Sadly Cuckoo have now virtually disappeared from Pickering’s lowland and Carr areas. In the early 1980’s I regularly used to record Cuckoo on Pickering’s lowlands; a very noticeable contributor to the dawn chorus. Now you have to travel up to moorland areas to see these enigmatic sub Sahel African migrants. Another migrant I always love hearing and seeing is Lesser Whitethroat; their sharp rattles are a true reminder that Spring is here!! This season I thought I would try and photograph LWT; what a frustrating task that turned out to be!!! A two hour session returned 99 arse shots and 1 frame that could be used!!! Swallows, Martins and Swifts are all very challenging as they move so damn quickly; just the other day, Alf and I had a drive through Newton -upon- Rawcliffe and we were very lucky to find some House Martins collecting mud from the local pond; these amazing little speed-bombs gave us some privileged views as they buzzed overhead with beaks full of mud; a super experience!!! And as May slowly melts away two distinct species come into sharp focus Turtle Dove and Honey Buzzard; well we will see how the dice falls and hopefully Lady Luck is smiling on us.
