Friday 17 March 2017

Wednesday 15th March 2017

Not just the highlight of the day but the highlight of the year so far was the discovery of an adult White-tailed Eagle seen from the Wykeham Raptor View Point from 10.45 until it was lost from view at 11.20, this is the sixth record of this species for the Scarborough area, The previous records were:-

A bird that had been trapped and shot was picked up dead at Cloughton on 12th March 1942 (W J Clarke).
An immature present from 20th January to 17th February 1948 roosted at Dovedale Griff, below Bridestones and flew down the valley into the Vale of Pickering each day (R M Garnet, M F M Meiklejohn, A J Wallis).
An immature previously seen at Filey flew over Marine Drive on 27th October 1985 (R H Appleby, S A Stirrup et al).
An immature that flew north over the town on 13th April 2011 had been seen previously over Filey (S Wignill).
One was seen at the Wykhem raptor viewpoint on 21st and 22nd March 2014 (B Richards et al) and presumably the same bird at the same location on 1st June 2014 (J Law et al).

Interestingly, what was presumably today’s bird was seen a few hours later over Hull, surely too much of a coincidence for it to have been a different individual.

Also in the Wykeham Raptor View Point area today at least 2 Goshawks, 4 Buzzards, a Peregrine and a Kestrel plus plenty of Crossbill activity and nearby at the top of Lang Gate a mixed flock of c100 Bramblings with 20 Yellowhammers, 6 Reed Buntings, 30 Chaffinches and a few Greenfinches plus a couple of flyover Crossbills.

At Crook Ness at least 5 of the Shore Larks were still about today and nearby in the Long Nab area there were several Goldcrests and Brambling.

Johnson’s Marsh played host to 4 Egyptian Geese in the morning but they didn’t stay for long and also this morning there were 3 Goosanders on Throxenby Mere.

A Red Kite was seen at Ravenscar today at 15.40 when it was slowly drifting south. on Folkton Carr there were a couple of Little Egrets and the Long-tailed Duck was still in Cayton Bay in the company of 11 Common Scoter.

My thanks to Chris Bradshaw for the details of the previous White-tailed Eagle records in the Scarborough area.

Goshawk - Troutsdale - Mark Pearson
Goshawk - Troutsdale - Mark Pearson
Long-tailed Duck - Cayton Bay - Chris Bull




No comments:

Post a Comment