Post 388 - Brilliant Sightings at Bolton-on-Swale

The best photo of the day, a female tufted duck that came close enough to

get a decent photo of.

Outside of the little hide at Bolton-on-Swale

Looking over the lake to where most of the birds were

Hey everyone, today's Post 388 and in my last post you'll have seen that I have been to Bolton-On-Swale Lake. It's another reserve not far away from me just like Nosterfield. It's a bit like Nosterfield too as it used to be a sand and gravel quarry and now its a big lake. There aren't many in North Yorkshire so they attract quite a lot of wading birds and wild fowl. It's got a nice mix of habitat around it too, some grassland on the far side of the lake, some patches of reeds and woodland.

This reserve is well tucked away and used to only have a tiny hide that you could get to down a long bumpy track. It's still got the tiny hide and long bumpy track but there's also a new viewing screen. I'm going to go back to that one day - I only used the hide this time as it was quite cold and windy and it was chilly enough in the hide!

My last post on Pochards which is just one of the species that I saw there. I've also updated that a bit too with some great facts and photos that @birdbrainuk gave me. I'm quite jealous as all the Pochards I see are normally the other side of whatever lake I'm at but in London David said that they are often swim round your feet!

Well I went to this reserve as part of my reserves challenge and as we hadn't been for a while, its a route my family don't go often which is a shame as it's a lovely little reserve. It turned out to be a great time to go though. In my last post I mentioned someone leaving the reserve tipped us off that there were some Scaup on the far edge of the lake. Well with the aid of my new telescope I saw some! A lifer for me so I was pleased about that. And like the Pochard they are also a Red List species, so another one to add to that challenge. The photos though were too blurry to tell what they were so I must get my digi-scoping kit soon!

Looking the other way - not a sausage!

As well as Pochards and Scaup there we were also a few Lapwings and Curlew about, also Red List birds. There plenty of Cormorants, Swans, Tufted Ducks, Canada Geese, Coots, Herring Gulls, Teal and Wigeon.

There were also Robins, Great Tits, Blue Tits and Wood Pigeons in the trees on the way to and from the car.

So not a bad little trip out, I'm sure I'll be back there before too long.

Hope you enjoyed,

Z.

P.S. I've added a page at the top now which links to the map which logs where I've been so far.