A year of my nature hunting: Post 379 - A cracking continuation to my challenge!

Sunday 10 January 2016

Post 379 - A cracking continuation to my challenge!

A Saturday stroll at Nosterfield

Hey everyone today is post 379 and I thought I would carry on with the challenge that I have set myself this year. The Reserves Challenge. It's basically where I will try to go to every single Yorkshire Wildlife Trust reserve in 1 year, and any local ones that I find too. It's going to be quite a, well, challenge. So far I have completed 6 of them. It's not many but we're only 10 days into the year.

This weekend I added three to my list, 1 that I go to quite often, 1 less so, and the other, it was my first time.

A young Peregrine (in the centre)
watching Lapwings - the lake is
very big now so hard for my zoom!

I'm going to start with Nosterfield. I go here very regularly, in fact I'll be back next weekend volunteering. It's a great place. In the summer the water levels were just about the lowest anyone had seen them. Now all of the lakes that are normally separate are pretty much one big one! Recently, we have found a nice little walk outside of Nosterfield too, it's actually a henge that was built quite a long time ago. I was a little bit disappointed when my Dad says it was a henge because I was expecting there to be huge stones but there wasn't any... it's basically a large circular walk around a sort of island that's separated from the 'mainland' by a huge trench but it`s still a lovely place to be and has a really calm atmosphere.

Coral Spot Fungus
(Nectria cinnabarina)at Nosterfield

We have seen some lovely things there such as a Great-Spotted Woodpecker and a Treecreeper. The biggest treat was having a Hare run out in front of me and bound across a field. I really do love it there, both at the Henge but especially the reserve itself. The reserve had most of its usual birds there, but as the lake was so high most were too far away for any good photos. I saw lots of lapwings, mallards, a few swans, some curlews and a highlight was three Buzzards! It's been great for raptors lately, last time I was there I saw a young Peregrine that was sat at the back of the lake for ages.

At the start of the
Littlebeck Wood Walk

Today we headed towards the coast & Littlebeck woods. If you follow my blog you'll know that I have mentioned this place quite a lot in recent months... it's really a lovely place, not too far from Whitby so we always try to tie it in with a visit there. It's basically a lovely wood on the edge of the village of (you guessed it) Littlebeck. Running through the woods is not really a Little Beck at the moment, it's actually quite deep. The ford on the road is 6 inches deep at the moment! I took some pictures down the river from the shallow bits as you can see on the right.

Very green still at Littlebeck

As far as nature goes, it's pretty amazing really. It seemed today the bushes were alive with the sound of birdsong and the chattering of them. A highlight was seeing Gold Crests but they just didn't sit still so I didn't manage to get any photos of them. There were also lots of Great Tits, Blue Tits, Long Tailed Tits around. This wood is meant to be great for Nuthatches too but I've not seen one there yet! I also thought it was very green there for the middle of January, ferns and other plants still cover the woodland floor. It has been mild and Little beck is a lovely sheltered valley so the plants have just kept growing! Saw some more Jelly Ear Fungus there too.

Found Fen Bog on way home

Sun setting though so will
have to go back!

Finally, there was the newest one. Fen Bog. Now, I don't have much to report on this one as, because of the time we spent at the lovely Whitby and Littlebeck, it had taken us to the sun setting and even by 4 o'clock it was starting to get dark. From what we saw of it though, it looked quite nice but it was quite Boggy and Fenny. From what the Wildlife Trusts book said, it has some good wildlife too, such as Merlins, Emperor Butterflies, and some interesting wild flowers too. I can't wait to go back there in the Summer.