Wednesday 5 August 2015

Black Stork

On Wednesday I asked my nephew if he'd like to go to Spurn. When we arrived it was an extremely high tide, so high there wasn't any room for any waders. They must have all been on Beacon Ponds, Kilnsea Wetlands and Chalk Bank. We had a look for the reported Black Stork, but without any luck. We went to Canal Scrape, but we were told by a couple that we wouldn't be able to see it from there, but suggested we try and look where the Masked Shrike was first seen last year. At all events we were warned to keep away from the "snobby", "rude" and "arrogant" twitchers on the canal bank. We tried to locate it, without any luck, But we did have some fine views of a very early-returned Short-eared Owl.  Then it was time to try and find some lunch. We returned from Easington and were driving on the main road past Well Field when we noticed an unusual looking bird circling above us. It was the Black Stork. We watched for a couple of minutes, as I took photos out of the open car window. It came to land along a hedge line among some posts and thick high grass. It could no longer be seen from this vantage point, but we had enjoyed the sighting all to ourselves. 
Black Stork
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This is an immature Black Stork, and its ring shows that it originates from Northern France.
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After a visit to Canal Scrape we walked along the now deserted canal bank, and spotted it again walking along the fence in the long grass before it launched itself into the air again, and it disappeared over the fence again and was lost to sight. Looking back we saw that all the twitchers had relocated to the spot where we had first seen the bird, but now they all rushed from there and headed towards the canal bank again. We decided to call it a day.  At Sunk Island on the way back we found an immature Barn Owl in the grass just outside a Barn. 
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Immature Heron
 Short-eared Owl
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 Swallow
 Juvenile Barn Owl
 Roe Deer (c) 2015 Ben Coneyworth
 Spurn Lighthouse (under Scaffolding)

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