On Wednesday afternoon we met near Kiplingcotes. It was overcast at first, although the sun began to break through just at the time we started. We soon discovered it was almost overpoweringly warm as we walked between two rows of hedgerows along the old Beverley to Market Weighton Railway Line. We eventually encountered more than twenty species of birds, but it was a day of flora and butterflies rather than avian species. A Painted Lady was a surprise, but we did see the usual suspects, which included Meadow Brown, Ringlet, Small Tortoiseshell, Small Skipper, Large Skipper and the occasional Marbled White. Once we arrived at the nature reserve the number of butterfly species seen multiplied with some Marbled Whites on almost every stalk of Greater Knapweed. We saw all the previous species, apart from Painted Lady, but we were able to add Common Blue, and a single Small Heath. Flowers seen in the reserve included Lady’s Bedstraw, Scabious, Thyme, Basil Thyme, Eyebright, Milkwort, Birds-foot Trefoil, St John’s Wort, Twayblades, Common Spotted and Pyramidal Orchids
On Thursday we drove the potholed preamble to Skerne. It wasn’t very promising at first, however, we had Yellowhammer, Linnet and Whitethroat from the parking area. We hadn’t been walking long and had stopped to search for a singing Reed Bunting. While we were looking for that a Heron flew over and then the first of what turned out to be at least 3 Marsh Harriers. We stood behind a screen and watched their antics for 10 minutes or so. From the bridge we could see a few brown trout. We had just left the bridge when a high-pitched piping brought us back, and resulted in the fleeting glimpse of a speeding Kingfisher. We then started on our tour of the site. We hadn’t been walking long when I noticed a Grass Snake sunbathing in an area with a few logs. It remained stationary for a few minutes, but once it had scented us on its darting tongue, it soon disappeared into the surrounding vegetation. The remainder of the walk was punctuated by dragonflies, butterflies and a couple of noisy Sedge Warblers. In the afternoon only one person out of a potential 8 put in an appearance, so he got to see everything on a one-to-one basis
On Friday we visited Barlow Common for the first time on a Friday since June 2017. Some stalwarts hadn’t even visited it before. The wild flowers on the common were simply stunning. These included Mullein, St John’s Wort, Yellowwort, Birdsfoot Trefoil, Wild Parsnip and Evening Primrose; and they were just the yellow ones. Also present were Basil Thyme, Centaury, and the scent from a whole field of Lady’s Bedstraw was simply intoxicating.
Buzzard (c) 2021 Jane Robinson
Butterflies include our first Gatekeepers of the year, plus Ringlet, Meadow Brown, Red Admiral, Green-veined whites and a Comma. There were a few darters and a couple of large Hawker Dragonflies.
The birds weren’t particularly plentiful, but we did have Sparrowhawk, Swallow, House Martin, Treecreeper, Red-legged Partridge, Blackcap, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Whitethroat, Linnet and Buzzard.
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