An Icy Start

Saturday 10th January 

Yesterday was baltic, with a hard frost and it was still -2DegC at 9am. I took my Dad to see the White-tailed Eagle in the Lower Derwent Valley which is still lingering. We headed first to Ellerton and I spotted the eagle immediately sitting in a tree on the other side of the ings. After a while, it came nearer and began hunting in the river channel flushing a lot of ducks before landing in a tree on the opposite bank. We left the eagle sitting in the tree as birders arrived to have a look. Just out of the village, 188 Whooper Swans and a few Mutes were in a winter wheat field grazing happily.

 

Sunday 11th January

Woke to a covering of snow in the garden and a Fieldfare feeding on an apple with the local Blackbirds. I dropped Addie and her friend off at their aerobatics club and then headed to East Cottingwith. By this time, it was pouring down with icy cold rain, but this was the start of the thaw and I welcomed it, for the respite it would bring to struggling birds. 

A big group of Greylags near East Cottingwith Pond was worth a look and sure enough a pair of Euro White-fronted Geese were with them. The goose flock paid me little heed as I carefully jumped out of the car and had a look through my scope. Smart birds with the male sporting heavy black belly stripes. After enjoying good views I headed round to the pond where 100 Wigeon were grazing in the field. 100ish Pink-footed Geese were in the field across the road, but there were no Tundra Beans to be seen, sadly. The Whooper Swans were still feeding near Ellerton and I stopped to count. 184 today, so pretty consistent with yesterday.

 Part of the big Whooper herd at Ellerton

 Next, Ellerton Church, where the White-tailed Eagle was hunting the river in tandem with a comparatively tiny Marsh Harrier. They flushed clouds of Teal and Wigeon from the river. Ten Black-tailed Godwits caught my eye as they winged rapidly south down the valley, and scoping the flock I was surprised to see a smaller plain-winged wader that looked good for a Bar-tailed Godwit, but unfortunately the flock had gone behind the near trees before I could clinch it. Hopefully it might be picked up somewhere else. 

 

The eagle landed on the ice on the Ellerton side of the river and tried to drink a bit of water from the puddles collecting on the ice surface. It skated about looking rather ungainly before it flapped off south towards Aughton. I headed down to North Duff to see if I could find any waders. A few patches of water were out from Geoff Smith Hide, and had attracted a few ducks who seemed to be enjoying the thaw. Several Snipe, Dunlin and Lapwings were feeding on the exposed grass around the pool and as I watched a pipit flew in across the ice. It looked big, dark and interesting and it landed momentarily on the exposed bank It was clearly a Rock or Water Pipit, but before I had chance to zoom in fully with my scope it took flight and flew off over towards Garganey Hide and I lost it. It 'felt' like a Rock Pipit, but can't be sure. I failed to find it from Garganey, but did pick up the eagle again distantly, hunting over the river before flying off purposefully west at about 1.30pm towards Skipwith Common. Cold and wet, I decided it was time for lunch so headed home.