A storm lit Peregrine

Yesterday was a cold day with grey sky's and a northerly wind blowing in frequent icy showers. Also a family day with kids swimming lessons and meals to prepare and supervise. But just after 4.30pm I felt a need to experience a bit of wildness and so I seized the opportunity offered by a gap in the weather for a walk under Hunstanton cliffs. 

When I got down onto the beach the first thing that struck me was the large numbers of slightly flighty Oystercatcher's feeding among the boulders on the tide line, these were noticeably focused on eating bivalves and I saw several with mussels and winkles in their beaks. 

Oystercatcher's Hunstanton Beach

As I watched the Oystercatcher's, Fulmar's like stiff winged crosses, glided effortlessly over the sea and across the face of the cliffs they will soon be nesting on.

Looking north along Hunstanton Cliffs and into the approaching storm

A curtain of rain back lit by the setting sun hung across the Lincolnshire shoreline of The Wash. To my north a slate grey sky gave an electric light to the horizon. And it was cold enough for me to be wearing gloves and swap my baseball cap for a warmer fleece hat.

An insouciant dog walker passed with his hounds which flushed the feeding waders and a small party of Brent Geese, creating for a moment or two a wheeling wind blown confusion of wings and bird calls. Looking up the grey sky to my north seemed closer. 

As the shorebirds settled I stood on a low boulder and picked out the unmistakable cigar shape of a Peregrine coming up from the south and over the sea heading towards me.  In the storm light as it powered its way into the wind effortlessly ahead of the ineffectually mobbing Herring Gulls its body glistened like Mercury.  

Then with the sun below the horizon and the storm upon me came the darkness and accompanying cold sharp rain.

The waters of The Wash and the sky above me were by now similar shades of dark battleship grey, the northerly wind on its own would have been bitterly cold but now this was amplified by the driving ice cold rain that was hitting me in the face. I'd had and savoured my wild moment and now I turned and strode with the wind at my back for home. 

The storm over me, Hunstanton Beach

Lunchtime Peregrine

I've taken lunchtime walks in and around Norwichs' Rosary cemetery and surrounding residential streets at least once a week for the last ten years or so. Some of these walks are real stomps to clear my head between meetings, some pass in a daze as I think about challenges at work and others [my favourites] are when I pause to take pictures and do a spot of birding with out binoculars.

Crap picture of a Peregrine over Norwich last week

During the week one walk started as a stomp, but as I walked up a side street with my head down against the wind a movement caught my eye and I instinctively looked up to see the distinctive low flying shape of a Peregrine as it flew past me and over the cemetery fence. Now I'm used to seeing Peregrines but the unexpected context and brief views left me doubting the sighting and keen for better views. So my stomp turned to a measured stroll as I walked downhill through the cemetery, constantly looking at the window of sky framed by the mature trees that grow here.

Just as I was about to walk out the cemetery gate into Rosary road I picked out the peregrine it's distinctive silhouette high above the cemetery.  As I walked down the road back to the office the bird drifted towards me and I took a few shots with my compact camera. Then it peeled away to half heartedly chase a gull, before giving up, at this point a woodpigeon flew over the office roof and did a sharp U turn when it saw the peregrine, which them drifted away to the south.

Things to do and not to do in the Yorkshire Dales with kids.

Spent 26th July to 9th August in the Yorkshire Dales on a family holiday, we stayed in a small cottage between Hubberholme and Buckden at the top of the valley of the river Wharfe. Always nice to get a dose of the Uplands even if the birding in the Dales can be a little slow at times.

 

Grange Cottage near Hubberholme [left of picture]

This is an area that I know pretty well from childhood holidays and somewhere that we have visited several times with our own two young boys [aged 2 and 5]. So from the perspective of a family that likes the outdoors and wildlife here are some thoughts on things to do and maybe not do.

River Wharfe at Hubberholme

Six things to do

Go to Bolton Abbey its brilliant, great coffee and cake in the cafe, lovely buggy accessible riverside walks, pebbly beaches from which to skim stones and generally mess around in the river Wharfe and especially in the spring some great birds including Dipper, Pied Flycatcher, Redstart, Wood Warbler, Mandarin Duck, Grey Wagtail etc.

 

Stone circle, Langstrothdale

Visit the inspirational Chris and Fiona Clark at Nethergill Farm just south of Hawes and learn about how they are linking Farming the Environment and People, enjoy one of their home made flapjacks, see the rare white shorthorn cattle, take a walk around the farm, or perhaps stay in one of their holiday flats.

 

White Shorthorn, Nethergill Farm

Walk south alongside the river Wharfe from Kettlewell along one side of the river as far as the stepping stones and then come back along the opposite bank, a great stretch of river for Dippers and Kingfishers and a nice length for small kids, no good for buggy's though.

 

Upper reaches of River Wharfe

Drive over to Bolton Castle and find your way through the maze or wander the battlements.

Bolton Castle and maze

Catch fish and Crayfish in the River Wharfe, you can do this pretty much anywhere.

Signal Crayfish, River Wharfe

Go to Malham, enjoy the well made path that takes you out to Malham Cove where in spring and summer you can look through the RSPB telescopes at the nesting Peregrines and wander why there are three times as many nesting in London as manage to breed in the Dales. If you have the time and energy walk up the steps on the side of the cove and across to Goredale Scar and back down into Malham where you could try out the Lister Arms for lunch.

One to maybe avoid

We went to Eureka the national children's museum in Halifax and were disappointed by the long and badly managed queues to get in and to eat, the crowded exhibition space and word heavy exhibits, an expensive mistake.

Sap starting to rise: Monday 10 to Monday 17 February

A relatively quiet first part of the week with the highlight perhaps being a Barn Owl in my headlights near Heacham, as I returned home from Norwich one evening.

Common Buzzard

A drive around the back roads on Sunday 16th was enlivened by two Common Buzzards drifting low over the car whilst no 2 son took his afternoon nap in the back. But the highlight of this drive was a couple of Brown Hare's that I spotted in a roadside field, normally these would have run off the moment I stopped the car but they had their minds on other things and I had a great five minutes watching them chase and box around the field, the sun even came out for a short while. You can see a few more pictures from this session on my Flickr page.

Another feature of the weekend was noticing for the first time in ages Skylarks in full song, a great sign that as the days draw out we are inexorably moving towards Spring.

Boxing Brown Hares

Today was taken up with a family outing to Wells Beach, all very quiet for birds although it was nice to hear a Little Grebe 'laughing' on the boating Lake where a male Goldeneye was great to see.

Shags on Hunstanton Cliffs at dusk

This evening I managed a walk at dusk under Hunstanton Cliffs, highlights were a pair of Red Breasted Merganser on the sea, c 350 Brent Geese over, lots of Fulmars on the cliffs, plus four Shags sitting on the sea that one by one took off into the wind and circled round over the sea before landing on the Cliffs to roost. As I headed home , in a bit of a hurry kids to bath, I flushed Peregrine which landed on a rocky bluff and allowed me to take some very grainy and distant pictures with the compact camera I had in my pocket. A nice end to the day.

Grainy, distant, slightly blurry shot of a Peregrine on Hunstanton Cliffs