April Weeks

Three weeks have gone by, three tricky weeks for the Leadley gang, but the outlook is bright now, like the weather. In amongst family stuff, I've got some birding in, and the local action has been exciting, with new migrants appearing daily, along with a scattering of scarcities. It has been an early spring, migrant-wise, with some southerly airflows and plumes of warm air originating in North Africa, providing a northbound escalator for homeward-bound birds. My earliest ever Sedge Warbler chittered from a reedy Wheldrake ditch on 7th April, the same day as the Swallows returned to Tower Hide. My first Swallow was a few days earlier, on the 3rd, the same day as the silvery cascade of a Willow Warbler trickled forth from a riverside willow. 

Up in the Dales, a male Redstart singing at Park Gill on the 10th, was my second earliest ever, and I enjoyed my first Wheatears of the spring the same day. A Whitethroat at East Cottingwith on the 11th and a Reed and Garden Warblers on the 16th were all my earliest records. Spring is undoubtedly arriving earlier! Besides the regular migrants, a few scarce birds have added a bit of spice, with waders featuring: a Grey Plover at North Duffield Carrs on the 4th was intriguingly the same date as the one I saw on the refuge at Wheldrake Ings last year, with an individual there on 1st April in 2024. These birds are creatures of habit, so this could well be the same bird, passing through the valley in early April each year. Seven Greenshanks on the Refuge at Wheldrake was a cracking spring count on the 5th, preceding a pair of Avocets which appeared at Duff on the 7th; I watched them fly high south at 10.33am, presumably heading for the Humber.  

 

Dodgy, distant wader photos: Grey Plover (4th April), Greenshanks (5th April), Avocets (7th April), all LDV.

Big numbers of hirundines gathered at Wheldrake mid-month, as poor weather forced them to seek food low over the water. Up to 2000 Sand Martins, along with c40 Swallows and a dozen House Martins provided a fantastic spectacle, although my efforts to extract a Red-rumped Swallow or a Crag Martin failed.  

 Sand Martins, Wheldrake.

Today (19th), with a brisk northwesterly wind, I headed first to Castle Howard, where two Common Sandpipers were my first of the year. A Great Egret stalked the reedbed and 40 Tufted Ducks loafed on the water. Both Reed and Cetti's Warblers sang from the reedbed at the west end. 

 

I headed next to Thornton, where seven Wheatears were bouncing around in a ploughed field, whilst Corn Buntings jangled from the wires overhead. A sunbathing Tawny Owl caught my eye on an old broken Alder, whilst watching a Snipe singing from a fencepost.

Two Whimbrels were feeding in the usual grassy pastures near Storwood as I passed on the way to East Cottingwith. These guys are regular as clockwork, pausing on their way to Iceland, to fatten up on local worms, before the last leg of their migration. With the breeze picking up, I thought it would be worth a while at the Refuge in case a Kittiwake or Arctic Tern dropped in to rest on the floodwater. Neither did, but two Cuckoos showed brilliantly in the trees next to the canal, and best of all, a female Osprey appeared out of nowhere, hovering right overhead as she scanned the water for food. She drifted off south, mobbed by a Red Kite. Amazing! Thirty Black-tailed Godwits, four Pintails and a pair of Grey Partridges were also present. Down at Duff, thirty more Blackwits were present along with five tardy Whooper Swans.  

 

 

 

Cuckoos, and Osprey, 19th April.