Night Herons - River Calder, West Yorkshire

An early morning start on Saturday saw me and Austin head over to West Yorkshire where two Night Herons had been found the previous day. We arrived just after dawn, with frost on the ground and low fog hanging over the River Calder, where the birds had been reported. Making a short walk along the river bank, we heard Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler and Blackcap, with a few Goosander on the river and small groups of Sand Martin flying around.

There were already a small group of birders present when we arrived, and unbelievably both Night Herons were showing out in the open on the north bank of the river! Night-Herons, or Black-Crowned Night Herons, are a widespread species with a cosmopolitan range across tropical and sub-tropical latitudes. In Europe, they breed sparsely across central and southern Europe, with a few attempted breeding records in the UK too. They're often quite secretive birds, and tend to hunt during the night or early morning.

The first individual made several successful catches

Unbelievably, my first Night Herons happened to be two individuals in the same place!

After we arrived, both birds were pretty inactive and, almost creepily, barely moved for long periods of time. One bird was along the river bank and would occasionally dart its head into the water to catch small fish. The other remained motionless in a sycamore tree overhanging the river. The setting wasn't particularly attractive, with rubbish and detritus covering the bank, but the views of the birds were awesome!

After this, we headed into the Peak District, specifically Ladybower Reservoir in north Derbyshire. Hiking up a pretty sizeable hill, we passed about 20 Red Grouse, along with other typical moorland species including Meadow Pipit, Reed Bunting, Lapwing, Curlew, Skylark, Raven and a brief Wheatear. My first Swallow of the year also passed by overhead.

The Red Grouse were sticking together in pairs


We reached a summit around 420m up where there was a steep rock and heather slope, and immediately picked up a singing Ring Ouzel on a fence post. This was my first of this mountainous species, and it was a really cool way of seeing my first one, as its call echoed out into the valley. We picked up the individual several times over the next hour, before spotting a female nearby too. Eventually, it seemed there were two pairs in the area.

Ring Ouzels showed relatively well on the cliffs above Ladybower

Typically, after the long trek down to the car, I picked up a male Ring Ouzel on the rocks straight above the car park! The hike was still worth it though...kinda!

Today, we went back for seconds of the Night Herons. This time, only a single bird was showing, in the exact same spot on the river bank. The weather started off okay but soon it started absolutely tipping it down. The Night Heron didn't seem too phased and barely moved throughout!




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Black Tern - Pennington Flash, Greater Manchester

Image
Back at Pennington Flash again this afternoon. Thankfully, a few Little Gulls were still hanging around. I counted at least three adult birds, one of which showed much better than my visit on Friday. The light was still poor, but this bird flew within 20 metres of the shore line At one point, the sailing boats came pretty close to the spit, forcing the Little Gulls and several Common Terns towards the northern shore. The sailors didn't seem too interested in the Little Gull above their heads The bird of the day though was a Black Tern . I spotted it almost immediately on a buoy, but it performed several flights around the flash while I was there. With lots of Sand Martins, Swallows and House Martins over the water, it was difficult to keep track of at times. The Black Tern is a holarctic species, but in Europe it is a more common breeder further east. Apparently they did used to breed in the UK, but now are passage migrants that turn up regularly on inland waterbodies such as Pen...
Read more

White-Winged Tern - Leighton Moss, Lancashire

Image
After several days of bat surveys in North Yorkshire, my return journey home couldn't have gone any better to plan when reports of a White-Winged Tern came through from Leighton Moss. The 10 minute diversion was well worth it I decided, as this species would be a lifer for me. I arrived at the reserve mid-afternoon and *casually* walked down to the Causeway Hide where it had been reported. Unfortunately, entering the hide I noticed lots of glum faces and it turned out the bird had flown off about half an hour earlier. Thinking it was unlikely to return, I had a brief scan around the pool, which was very quiet aside from a couple of Shelduck , a quartering Marsh Harrier, a booming Bittern  and the usual breeding waterfowl. Then, I looked up as a couple of Black-Headed Gulls passed overhead, and amongst them was the White-Winged Tern ! The bird shot past the hide and continued to the far edge of the pool, just about visible above the reeds. After a further 10 or so minutes thoug...
Read more

Wood Warblers - North Wales

Image
While I've yet to see the Grey-Headed Lapwing, I settled for some great birds closer to home today. Me and Carl visited two sites in North Wales in the hopes of finding Wood Warbler, one of the more obvious UK species I'm yet to catch up with. With some great local information from John Roberts, we arrived at Bod Petrayl in north-east Wales at around 7:30am. Just as John had said, Wood Warbler was the first bird we heard after leaving the car! It took a little while to spot it in the poor light as it darted amongst the conifers adjacent to the car park, but when it came down to the lower branches the views were great! Poor light, but some great views of Wood Warbler ! We did a bit of exploring in the surrounding woodland - really interesting to see well-developed coniferous woodland with diverse ground flora, alive with birds compared to most desert-like plantations! It wasn't long before we picked up another Wood Warbler , also in conifers on the other side of a small lak...
Read more