For this years Clayheads Christmas trip, we decided to pop over to Yorkshire. We thought what better way to celebrate what a fabulous year its been for all the premiership, cheque-book, drop at any cost, school bobbing birders (GCSE's come in useful you know) than by standing on the edge of the Humber estuary with a 25mph wind blowing in your face early one winter's Saturday morning staring at rotting fish. So that's what we chose to do.
Fortunately, as we were walking down the track to Patrington Haven, we received news that the 1w Ivory Gull was already gorging itself on the fore mentioned rotting fish. It was quite a memorable twitch for several reasons. Firstly, as we walked down, in the distance we could see someone using a flash to take photo's. It certainly made us walk quicker. The Ivory Gull was not really settled all the time it fed, which is understandable with the "get-a-shot-at-any-cost" photographers that appear to be at most big twitches now.
The second memorable thing was the fish organiser, a certain Mr Trout. Mr Trout came along, armed with his one metre long lens a bit later than everyone else, and after the Ivory Gull had flown away from its first feed. He started to re-arranged the feeding area, removing any bits of unsightly dead fish, removing any bits of wood and litter and making the area nice for his "award-winning money shot". He then plonked down the largest piece of pink salmon you've ever seen. It was enormous and it sat there for all to see, whilst the Ivory Gull was sat on the rocks miles away. Along came Mr Nice. He got out his carrier bag of fish (imagine what his car smelt like) and emptied his bag, kindly donating his last few little pieces of fish that he owned. Incredibly, along came Mr Trout and basically told him to remove his fish (we think because they were too small and from his arm movements he was suggesting the gull would come down and grab one and fly off). This poor bloke then bent down and started picking up his offerings with his bare hands. We all genuinely felt sorry for Mr Nice, but Mr Trout wanted his nice shot and didn't want it to be ruined by anyone else. What a complete tw...
Anyway, I digress. The 1w Ivory Gull showed extremely well in the early morning light. It flew in at 07:15 hrs and was first spotted by none other than the Clayhead's No1 stalker - Ian! Nothing quite like ending the year with a stalker in tow, and hopefully it will happen again next year. It flew off and sat on the rocks in between flying around but it never looked like returning to feast on the fresh salmon. At 09:00hrs, we walked back to the car and headed off. By now, the lane was full of cars, and it was tight for us to drive down. Imagine a tanker coming down!
1w Ivory Gull, Patrington Haven, Yorkshire (c) Clayheads
Next stop was Hornsea Mere. It was incredibly windy here, so strong in fact that you had to cling on to your tripod for dear life in case you were blown away. From the point, a very showy Grey Phalarope was feeding away frantically. In the reeds opposite a Great White Egret was skulking away but we couldn't find the Long-tailed Duck or Velvet Scoter - the waves were too high. We quickly retreated back to the car before the wind ruined our hairstyles for the rest of the trip.
Photos by Phil Jones
We headed down towards North Cave next and drove through the quite picturesque town of Beverley, a place I'd never been to before. North Cave was a small YWT reserve and I think they knew they would be attracting quite a few birders on the way back from Patrington, calling in here to see the GREEN-WINGED TEAL. There was a nice man giving out directions, showing us where to go on a map, a nice selection of books for sale on his table. All very good except for one major mistake. We were all thinking how can we get past him without paying when we realised we weren't going to be charged a penny to go in! We couldn't quite believe our stroke of fortune. (For legal reasons, I'd like to point out I am a fully paid up member of the RSPB even though they supported the Ruddy Duck cull, the WWT, BTO and WMBC). We walked to the Turret hide and the birders just leaving (must have smelt CJW's big lump of fresh salmon he had in his pocket for his tea ) told us where the Green-winged Teal was. It was on an island, hidden in a gully asleep. And basically for an hour that's where it stayed. Crippling views were had and a fine bird to end the day on. The hides at North Cave were quite good. Plenty to read in there while you were waiting for the GWT to wake up. There were site lists, dragonfly lists and endless identification articles from Birdwatching magazine all nicely laminated. Excellent stuff.
At first it was asleep with only its head showing....
...then it woke up but it didn't move much....
....but then it did move at bit, then went back to sleep......
.....then there was a big disturbance and it came out into the open and went to sleep showing not very well.
Following some advice given to me on Saturday during the long hours spent in the car, it was suggested that I needed to inject some humour into the blog. So here it is...
What does a policeman have on his sandwiches?
- Luncheon meat!
I think I got the punch line right. I can't remember now. So that concludes the trip. Today we saw a magnificant Black Swan at Hornsea Mere.....
and an Ivory Gull at Patrington....
which leads into today's song.....
