Day 53 - A Nature Ramble at Sutton Bank

View from Sutton Bank over Lake Gormire

Hi all today's Day 53 and even though it's Christmas Eve I've been out nature hunting. I went to a place in the North Yorkshire Moors called Sutton Bank. This is basically a big inland cliff, it's pretty awesome. Gliders launch from here and you can see for miles across the Vale of Mowbray and across to the Dales. On the side of the hills here is also a famous landmark which can been seen for miles around. I've seen it from York! That is the White Horse at Kilburn.

Looking towards the Dales from Sutton Bank

At the top of the bank is the start of the North York Moors National Park and they have a visitor centre there and lots of walks at the top.
Along the top of the bank is a place where they have what they called 'the finest view in England'. I have to admit, at least to me, it probably is the best in England. We took a couple of pictures of it and I thought I'd post a couple, but check out the one below from the parks website as it was a bit dull when i was there.

View from Sutton Bank across Lake Gormire (Thanks to NYMNP & Mike Kipling)

At the visitor centre are some feeders which mostly have garden birds visiting them but some of them are quite rare. There has been sightings of waxwings on their feeders which is something I have never seen. Anyway here is the list of my sightings with links to my blogs where I've covered the species:


Willow Tit:

Willow Tits have an almost identical cousin called the Marsh Tit. Click here to see a video that explains how to tell the difference between the two birds. A Willow Tit has a 'zee-zee-zee' or an equally thin 'zi-zurr-zurr-zurr call which is sometimes.


Coal Tit:

Coal Tits look a little bit similar to the Willow and Marsh Tits but they have a white stripe over the back of their head. They also have white cheeks without a yellow out-line which is another give-away.


Dunnock:

Dunnocks used to live in the Himalayas so they have travelled a very long way to come and live with us here in the UK. Some people think these are dull and boring but they aren't as you can see from the picture. They have a lovely light-grey breast and face and brown plumage over the rest of its body.


Blue Tit:

In the Winter Blue Tit families meet up with others to search for food. This sometimes means that a garden with four or five blue tits could be feeding 20 or more birds! They are one of the commonest UK birds we have 15 million birds over winter!


Chaffinch:

It was a surprise when I was doing some research and I found out they are the second commonest bird in the UK but then again 6,200,000 breeding territories is quite a few. They are resident all over the UK.




There was also some great fungi there. I saw lots of puffballs as well as the bracket fungi here which I haven't identified yet.

Anyway here are some links to some information:

North York Moors National Park

The RSPB

The BTO

Hope you enjoyed,

Z.