On The Road Again - Back towards East Yorkshire

 

          I just need to see that happy, smiling face of my arch Green Birding enemy, Ponc Feliu Latorre and I get the urge to get back on my bike and cycle 200 miles to get back to Spurn Head!

          Yes, I will be back on the road again today. Mum's 90th birthday celebrations . . .

. . .  are over and it is time to put The Spaniard in his place by beating him to the title, European BIGBY - Big Green Big Year champion.

Who will win?

Well, I have to believe that I will. Four months to go and although I am ten birds behind Ponc's current total of 262, the Autumn migration may give me all the birds I need to, not only catch him but take the title.

          I will be spending most of the next two months at Spurn Head, East Yorkshire. Looking forward to everything that that will entail, especially The Spurn Migration Festival. 

Spurn Migration Festival 2022

          As for the competition between Ponc and myself, I hope that we will have a lot of fun over the coming weeks and months as we both struggle to add birds to our growing lists.

          To that end, I have changed the words of a well-known England football song to reflect on the competition and I hope that you all will send me videos of you singing along with it!

          Come on! You know you want to. Sing it loud. Sing it clear. Video yourselves singing and PLEASE send me the video. 

          These three are singing it so why not join in?

(Facebook, Twitter or Instagram message me!)

The words?

Oh yeah. They'd help.

OK, here goes . . . 

BIGBY's Coming Home - Lyrics

 

Commentary – I think he’s used fossil fuels before

He’s used ferries before, not cycled it all before

It's coming home
It's coming home
It's coming
BIGBY’s coming home

Commentary – He’ll go on doing a dirty BIGBY, doing a dirty BIGBY, doing a dirty BIGBY

It's coming home
It's coming home
It's coming
BIGBY’s coming home

It's coming home
It's coming home
It's coming
BIGBY’s coming home

It's coming home
It's coming home
It's coming
BIGBY’s coming home

Everyone seems to know the score
They've seen it all before
They just know, they're so sure
That birds just will not fly here today
They won’t fly here this way
But I know we can say
Cos we remember

(chorus)
Sib Acc on the cliff
Lee & Cath’s smiles beaming
Nine cruel years, what if?
Never stopped me dreaming

So many missed, so many fears
But all those oh-so nears
When I’ve dipped, through the years
But I still see that gull on the shore
And when Goshawks did soar
And the Firecrest so small
And some Cranes dancing

(chorus)
Sib Acc on the cliff
Lee & Cath’s smiles beaming
Nine cruel years, what if?
Never stopped me dreaming

(Commentary) – Britain has done it, in the last minute of December

(Commentary)  - What a Bird! Blue Rock Thrush.

(Commentary) – Good Old Britain! Britain with birds in the autumn.

Britain has got this in the bag!

I know that was then
But it could be again

It’s coming home
It's coming
BIGBY’s coming home

It's coming home
It's coming home
It's coming
BIGBY’s coming home

Commentary – Britain has done it

It's coming home
It's coming home
It's coming
BIGBY’s coming home

It's coming home
It's coming home
It's coming
BIGBYs coming home

 

It's coming home
It's coming home   (Sib Acc on the cliff)
It's coming  
BIGBY’s coming home  (Lee & Cath’s smiles beamimg)

It's coming home   (Nine cruel years, what if?)
It's coming home
It's coming
BIGBYs coming home   (Never stopped me dreaming)

 

It's coming home     (Sib Acc on the cliff)
It's coming home  
It's coming  
BIGBY’s coming home  (Lee & Cath’s smiles beamimg)

 

It's coming home   (Nine cruel years, what if?)
It's coming home
It's coming
BIGBYs coming home   (Never stopped me dreaming)

It's coming home     (Sib Acc on the cliff)
It's coming home  
It's coming  
BIGBY’s coming home  (Lee & Cath’s smiles beaming)

 

It's coming home   (Nine cruel years, what if)
It's coming home
It's coming
BIGBYs coming home   (Never stopped me dreaming)

…….

          Nine cruel years refers to how many years I have dreamed of being the European Green Birding BIGBY Champion. Ponc broke the record back in 2013, when he saw an incredible 304 bird species.

          Lee and Cath and the Sib Acc, Siberian Accentor?

          Back in 2016, when I was on Fair Isle, the best birder I know, Lee Gregory found an ultra rare Siberian Accentor. In fact 2016 was the year of the Siberian Accentor. Never before seen in Britain, that year brough over ten to our shore, with Lee's being the fourth. Lee's face as he cuddled his then fiance, now wife, Cathy, is one of my favourites.

          This photograph of the fabulous couple was taken at the Blue Rock Thrush twitch on the penultimate day of that fantastic Biking Birder year.

          So, back to Spurn with bird targets to see on the way there from Worcestershire; Pectoral Sandpiper at Blacktoft Sands, Spotted Crake at North Cave Wetlands and a Red-necked Phalarope at Kilnsea.

          Wish me luck!

          and just maybe I will be celebrating once more, like I did back in 2016 after seeing my 305th bird species of the year, a Pine Bunting on Fair Isle. BUT I used ferries and therefore the record is tainted, hence this BIGBY. 

NO FOSSIL FUEL TRANSPORT THIS YEAR!!!!

Weeks to Catch Up on! The BEST Birds of July and August

 

Let's start the round up of the new bird species added to my BIGBY, Big Green Big Year list over the last ten weeks with the American Black Tern. Not a bird that could be added actually for at the moment it is a sub-species.

A Roseate Tern at Musselborough was a bonus bird. Having slept in the roofless hide and having been soaked by overnight rain, to see a species missed when near Coquet Island was brilliant. Sad to say that the two days I spent at Hauxley NR searching for Roseates was tainted by the large number of dead and dieing birds due to avian flu. Fifty five dead Sandwich Terns were on one island at the reserve!

Pied-billed Grebe at Feorlin Loch, Scotland and what a trek to see that bird! The insect bites I received on my legs are still scabbed and itchy. Must get them looked at!

This Black Guillemot at Connel Bridge saved me having to cycle from there to Oban and back!

Nine hours treking three Munroe mountain tops before finally finding two Ptarmigan at the very last bit of scree!

Nine hours for a Ptarmigan, nine seconds for a Crested Tit! Lieing in my sleeping bag in the evening, I noticed a titmice flock going over my tent. Get up and check, I told myself and on doing so the second bird to come out of an adjacent bush when pishing was this little beauty.

Didn't manage to photograph a distant White-tailed Eagle near the Chruch of Scotland in the Findhorn Valley but did manage to photograph a nearby Golden Eagle at the far end of the valley.

No photograph either of an exploding Capercaillie, well it startled me when it erupted from behind a fallen tree trunk as I was walking around a forest near Carrbridge. This deer was more obliging.

Velvet Scoter were seen at Musselborough but despite another two days spent there,  still couldn't find the King Eider.

This Polish-ringed Caspian Gull was seen at Amble.

Three really tough days cycling, due to a strong gale from the south-west, eventually got me to Bempton RSPB reserve and late in the evening, after watching a Short-eared Owl (top) and a very close Barn Owl, the reported Red-tailed Shrike popped up on the hedge just in front of me. The photograph above I took the following morning.

Adding Arctic Skua to the list whilst seatwaching with the Flamborough Head crew, I then cycled towards Hull only to be diverted to Spurn Head as an American White-rumped Sandpiper had been seen.

Didn't see it that day, nor the following but the day after that I saw two!

And there we have it. Today, August the 12th will see me cycle towards Leicester in temperatures approaching 32 Celsius! After those ferocious gales mentioned above, the last three days have been scorching and indeed the landscape as I have cycled through Lincolnshire has been parched and drought-ridden.

My BIGBY bird list now stands at 250. I am still some way behind the leader, Ponc Feliu Latorre, twelve bird species actually but two months at Spurn Head and Flamborough should bring its rewards this autumn.

Time to get back to Worcestershire, to my family to celebrate the 90th birthday of my dear old Mum. BCNU all xx

The North East : Part 1 North York Moors

          Emotions cascade as I view the hazy North East from my high vantage point on the gravelly, almost uncyclable Cleveland Way bridleway. Relief at having almost reached the end of a tough afternoon of push and desolation, I look towards my evening accommodation destination north of Middlesborough and towards the distant Pennines to the west. Ahead of me Roseberry Topping has the distinctive witch's nose appearance and seeing that relaxes me as I cautiously approach one of my favourite areas of Britain, the industrial North East.

 Gripping tightly my bicycle handlebars, I descend from Baysdale with the wheels sliding and bouncing over pebbles and sand. 

           My day had started easily enough, leaving my superb Air B & B in Snainton, east of Pickering, saying goodbye to Richard and Emma. Cycling along the busy, lorry-laden A170 the first fifteen miles was easy enough despite it being warm with a fresh westerly in my face.

          I had stopped on seeing a traditional Gypsy caravan beside the road just outside Pickering and so had met Jim & Milly, older than me Gypsy's with their early twenties sons, Levi and Jonathan. An hour or so spent with this wonderful traveller family was well spent and, after a demonstration of Jim's knive sharpening bicycle, I had turned north at Kirbymoorside.

           Push and plunge, the road had steep flower-filled hedgerow margins and occasional white knuckle cycling drops before it arrived at the high moorland of the North York Moors.

           Curlews sat on drystone walls or curlewed as they fell into long grass to attend to, hopefully, the youngsters hidden amongst the sward.

           Arriving at proper moorland, noticeboards tell of waders to be seen, Lapwing and Curlew, and Merlin but nothing about the larger birds of prey. No Hen Harriers up here!

          Vicious traps found designed to kill non-avian predators, such as Stoat and an immense patchwork of scorched earth areas with young heather patches stretching for miles in all directions told me I had arrived at a Grouse shooting moor. I detest such places. It is an almost birdless desert, totally manufactured for the slaughter of Red Grouse.

          I would have almost ten miles ahead of me, to negotiate a pathway unsuited to my heavily laden hybrid bike. Most of my afternoon was spent pushing, occasionally cycling and more often spent standing on one pedal and moving along, able to jump off if the pebbles and stones caused the bike to slide and fall.

          Birds were almost totally absent. Despite the miles covered, I only saw two adult Red Grouse, a few chicks too, two Golden Plover and a few Meadow Pipits. Some Crows and Curlews were occasionally seen too.

          I keep thinking of the magnificent Ruth Tingay of the website - Raptor Persecution UK.

https://raptorpersecutionuk.org/2019/06/12/buzzard-found-shot-dead-in-north-york-moors-national-park/ 

https://twitter.com/RuthTingay/status/1145258045884248064 

and of a great friend, Mark Thomas of the Head of Investigations office at the RSPB.

           The incredible work done by both individuals over a number of years, acting upon the evil practices of too many in the grouse shooting and hunting community, has been phenomenal and both deserve to be nationally recognised.

          So, reaching the moors end is fabulous and after seeing a fly by Tawny Owl, unusual to see one flying in daylight, I cycle towards Middlesborough, eventually to bed down near to Greatham Creek, just north of a favourite RSPB reserve, Saltholme.

No time for full blog entry so here's the HIGHLIGHT BIRDS seen recently! "What flavour is it?"

 

With my BIGBY, Big Green Big Year 2022 list now at 234, so many highlight birds to show you . . .

Red Kite

Crane at Otmoor RSPB reserve

Friendly Grey Heron at regent's Park, London

Ring-necked Parakeet, one of many seen and heard as I crossed London!

Iberian Chiff Chaff

Little Grebe, Red-crested Pochard and Grey Wagtail at Rye Meads RSPB reserve, a favourite RSPB reserve of mine.

White Stork

Run away!!!

Spotted Sandpiper at Titchwell RSPB reserve

Avocet chick at Titchwell RSPB reserve and 

Bee-eaters at Trimingham, Norfolk.

Up North!

Over the Humber Bridge. 

. . . and onto Flamborough Head . . . 

Razorbill. Kittiwake, Puffin and Barn Owl.

Phew!!!!

Kittiwake

Goshawk, Crossbill and Honey Buzzard at Wykeham Forest Raptor Viewpoint

Bempton RSPB Reserve

And finally  . . . 

It may be only a splodge sitting distantly on a clif but . . .

Albatross!!!!!!

BIGBY list as of June 22nd stands at 234. Scotland, here I come.