May 2012 - Old Moor RSPB and Hatfield Moor YWT

Sunday 6th: A bright and sunny day, albeit a bit cool when out of the sun. A visit out to RSPB Old Moor NR near Barnsley and an early start to get there for 9am. Sandra joined me today and straight away she was spotting the Bullfinches, Greenfinches et al in the bird garden. A Wren was singing loudly as they always do, flying to and fro from it's nest in a shed. It looked as though it was carrying food and presumably there were chicks in the nest. A Great Tit was also busy gathering food from the feeders and returning to a nest box as can be seen in the photo below.

Above: Male Bulfinches always look resplendent in their peach, white, grey and black plumage.

Above: Canada Geese with some of the Goslings

Male Greenfinch

A female Mallard Duck with her chicks.

Male Reed Bunting singing loudly from a high perch.

Tree Sparrow.

Above: Twitch of the Day - this Lesser Whitethroat was in full song in the bracken. We followed it up and down the lane. The photo was taken from inside the hide.

A sure sign of Summer - Willow Warbler

Above: A male Blackcap was in full song from his perch with a male Greenfinch higher up.

Above: Coming a close second to the twitch of the day is this Common Sandpiper. This caused quite a stir in the hide as they tend not to be so common!

Later in the afternoon we took the short drive out to Wombwell Ings. A satellite reserve of Old Moor. Sandra saw a couple of Kingfishers which, of course I missed. Lapwings were there also with chick, Graylag Geese, Canada Geese and Tufted Ducks. A Grey Heron flew over and tucked in a quite spot was a single Avocet.

As time was getting late we drove back towards home and a quick visit to Hatfield Moor (south) and Boston Park lake. Here we encountered 5 Yellow Wagtails as seen below and plenty of low flying Swifts and Swallows. In fact the Swifts we flying so low that we almost had our hair parted several times!

This was a very good day out. Three different venues visited, sunny and three cracking bird species seen!