Saturday 15 November 2008 - A Yorkshire Hat-trick! - Crossbill, Wheatear & Tamworth FC.
Saturday 15th November 2008
A Yorkshire Hat-trick!
What a crackin' day! First I enjoyed marvelous views of the handsome male TWO-BARRED CROSSBILL in North Yorkshire, secondly the first-winter female PIED WHEATEAR showed well in East Yorkshire and the icing on the cake was my beloved Tamworth FC winning 3-1 away at Farsley Celtic in West Yorkshire..... to remain top of the Blue Square Northern League.
Urra, North Yorkshire
The first stop was the picturesque area of Urra just south of Stokesley. I parked at the Clay Bank car park and hiked the half mile or so to Garfitts Farm where a male TWO-BARRED CROSSBILL had been coming to feeders for the past three weeks. After about a hour wait the bird flew in and started to feed on peanuts..... unfortunately most of us were all watching the wrong feeder at the front of the house so I only got a brief glimpse. The bird then flew to feed high up in the larches where reasonable views were had before disappearing again. The bird was still in the area though as you could occasionally hear it's distinctive nasal, piping call. After a further hours wait the bird flew in again to the feeder at the back of the house. This time I was ideally positioned in just the right place and the bird showed well for about 5 minutes. After a short while it visited the feeder at the front completely ignoring the admiring crowd of birders that had assembled. This was only my second ever TWO-BARRED CROSSBILL in Britain and my first male. My previous sighting was of an adult female in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire during March 1998. Other sightings in the area included the usual woodland species, a few Brambling and a zillion Common Pheasants.
Two-barred Crossbill factfile
After the influx of this species into the Northern Isles of Scotland during the early part of the autumn it was just a matter of time before one was picked up further south. I'm sure that a few more may well be reported in England as the winter progresses. In European terms the species breeds in Northern Russia. It also probably breeds in Finland most years and occasionally in Sweden, Norway and very rarely in Germany. Like other Crossbill species they are subject to periodic irruptions well away from their usual areas. Compared with other Crossbills this species has a marked preference for feeding in larches rather than spruces or pines and can also be found feeding in deciduous trees such as birches and rowans.
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Reighton Sands, East Yorkshire
I then headed south-east towards Filey feeling a bit like Nick Berry from Heartbeat as I made my way through some gorgeous Yorkshire countryside and a few pretty little villages. Unfortunately the PIED WHEATER had shunned these more aesthetically pleasing areas for a toilet block on a caravan site! Upon arrival the bird had moved out of the clifftop ravine and was feeding unconcerned around the static caravans. This first-winter female was an extremely tatty individual and appeared to have some kind of injury to it's underparts. Like the Crossbill this was only my second ever example of this species in Britain. My last was a 1st winter male at Spurn, East Yorkshire during October 1998.
Pied Wheatear factfile
There have been just 53 accepted records of this species in Britain with 12 of those reported since the year 2000. The species mainly breeds in Russia where there is a wild estimate of 100,000 to 1 million pairs. It also breeds to a lesser extent in Romania, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Turkey and Moldova. In winter the species migrates to eastern Africa where it can be found from Sudan and Somalia south to the north-east regions of Tanzania,
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