Jackie and I have an annual trip in October to the East Riding of Yorkshire. It's a chance to connect with friends, though in the last few years we break the journey in Lincolnshire, we usually stay near Boston so we can visit RSPB Frampton Marsh and Frieston Shore reserves.
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| St. Botolph's Church or known as the "Boston Stump" © Nick Hull |
St. Botolph’s Church, "Boston Stump" replaced an earlier Norman church, construction of the present building commenced in 1309 at the east end and was completed by 1390, apart from the tower. The tower construction was started in 1425-1430 but not completed until 1510-1520. The Chancel was originally only designed to be three bays long but was lengthened by two additional bays to the east, possibly because of the growing importance of commercial and religious life of the town.
The view of the church was taken from Frampton Marsh which we visited on the 9th Oct. One of our first thoughts were how dry the reserve was compared to our previous visits and due to that wetland species were low in number. We decided to walk down to the Seabank viewpoint and view out across the saltmarsh towards the mouth of the River Welland and the Wash. In retrospect this was the correct decision as on the way we recorded various common small passerines like tits, Robin, Skylark and Reed Bunting. We also saw the resident Whooper Swan but we always wonder if it was really ok to tick it off for the year, but we needn't have worried as we had two flights, one of fifteen then of three which flew over south.
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| Whooper Swan - Frampton Marsh © Nick Hull |
From the Seabank VP we had a good few waterfowl out on the saltmarsh which included our first Dark-bellied Brent Geese of the autumn, a large flock of Golden Plover high up in the sky to our southwest. There was also many flights of Wigeon with other species mixed in flying over in various sized skein's into fields to our east.
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| Wigeon & Pintail flying over - Frampton Marsh © Nick Hull |
On our walk back to the centre a male Stonechat posed so nice atop of a bush I just had to take a few shots on him.
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| Male Stonechat - Frampton Marsh © Nick Hull |
We had lunch in the cafe before we then headed off to Frieston Shore just a short drive from Frampton. Frieston is another wetland and unlike Frampton it had water, we walked down to the seawall, here we had lots of Wigeon and a couple of good groups of 'alba' Wagtails along the seawall. We added more Whooper Swans, Little Grebe, Shoveler, Teal and a few common waders. We ended our visit with 38 species 2 more than we saw at Frampton. Over all we had a good days birding.
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| Pair Little Grebe - Friestone RSPB © Nick Hull |
Next morning we headed north to Bridlington Links to our lodge though we took a brief break in our journey and visited friends en-route. A few hours later we were resting in the lodge and having lunch before popping back out to get supplies. Our first days birding started at the Flamborough Observatory at 08:00hrs on the 11th. The ringing team were just arriving back from doing the first net round and over the morning we saw a number of common species in the hand. The best that morning was probably the 18 Lesser Redpoll, some of the males looked really smart with their pink flushed breasts.
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| Male Lesser Redpoll - Flamborough Observer © Nick Hull |
When the the ringing slowed down Jackie and I had a walk around the woodland for an hour or so. We didn't add much to our day list but we did see a small group of seven Bullfinch and after lunch we decided to head to Hornsea Mere to try for the Ring-necked Duck.
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| Male Bullfinch enjoying the berries © Nick Hull |
On arrival there was good numbers of wildfowl on the Mere though most was very distant. There was a good number of Whooper Swan, Wigeon Tufted, Mallard, Pochard, Teal, Gadwall, Shoveler and Goldeneye, a single Great White Egret and a fly over Glossy Ibis but the Ring-necked Duck we couldn't find. We decided we would return in a day or two when the light was better and headed back to the lodge.
The 12th started early and back to South Landing and the Obs. to see what was caught on the first net rounds. Again it was a Redpoll morning, but one of the nicest birds caught on the morning was a Treecreeper which was particularly nice to see up close. They also caught a pair of Blackcap, Blackbird, Tree Sparrow a family of Long-tailed Tits and a few Goldcrest.
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| Treecreeper - Flamborough Obs © Nick Hull |
Jackie noticed, as we went off for a walk around the woodland to see if we could find anything new that had arrived that morning or overnight, a single Cowslip on the bank by the Obs. which looked totally out of place for the time of year.
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| Cowslip - Flamborough Obs © Nick Hull |
Again around the woodland it was fairly quiet though there was a slight increase in numbers of Blackbirds and the odd Redwing in the scrubby areas. As it was Sunday we had arranged to meet friends, Derek and Kay, for lunch at the North Star and afterwards had a relaxing afternoon and evening.
The 13th didn't look as though it was going to be much different to previous days so we planned to start at the Obs and see what news came in. So we headed off and as we reached the Brid Links car park we noticed Keith Clarkson who leads the Visual Migration watch in the mornings. We pulled over to say hello and asked if there was anything moving and he answered and said there was some thrushes moving, so we joined him and for the next four hours or so counted what was passing overhead.
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| These are Redwing and Blackbirds going over high © Nick Hull |
As the morning progressed we had spells with nothing moving then there would be a flurry or small flock moving over which kept our interest and before we knew it, it was lunch time by which time the movement had more or less stopped for the day. The count of the main species we observed that morning were :-
Wigeon 115; Teal 4: Short-eared Owl 1 in off sea; Skylark 22; Starling 12; Song Thrush 17; Redwing 4445; Blackbird 99; Fieldfare 444; Brambling 20+. We drove the short distance back to the lodge to have lunch, we just got out of the van and we both said "Geese" and looking up there was a skein of c35 Barnacle Geese going over and checking the birding news there had been several sighting all around the Flamborough area. We found out later these were birds that had overshot the Solway Firth and over the next few days they were seen moving back towards the Solway.
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| Barnacle Geese © Nick Hull |
On the 14th we started with vismig on the links but soon it became obvious that there was very little moving so we headed to the Obs. The ringing station had lots of interest with visitors so along with Jen, a lady we meet annually at the migweek, headed off up the road to the Lawn Bowling Green a Yellow-browed had been seen there, Almost immediately on our arrival we heard the 'ta-swee' of a Yellow-browed but we failed to be able to locate in the trees. Heading back to the Obs we arrived just in time as they had another caught in the nets.
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| Yellow-browed Warbler - Flamborough Obs © Nick Hull |
It was off around the woodland to see what else could be found, thrushes were in evidence in all the bushes mainly Redwing and Blackbird and lots of Goldcrest everywhere. Time was getting on so we headed back to the van and went off to Bempton Cliffs to see what we could find there. It turned out that Bempton couldn't give us much more than we had already seen other than the usual Gannets and gulls along the cliffs Jackie picked out a Peregrine cruising overhead and we had a distant Kestrel in the window of the old RAF building which usually has Little Owl.
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| Two passing Gannet - Bempton Cliffs RSPB © Nick Hull |
15th, we start with vismig at the links other than 401 Redwing; 110 Fieldfare and 40 Starling and calling Tawny Owl little was happening, so we head back to Hornsea had lunch watching the sea which only produced c20 Teal sitting on the sea. Then back to the Mere where there was plenty of waterfowl as usual. There were still a few Whooper Swan and Barnacle Geese and we managed to find the Scaup, a handful of Pochard and three Great White Egret, we heard another Yellow-browed which was somewhere behind us.
We spent quite some time scanning through the duck but still couldn't find the Ring-billed Duck. So started having a look through the gulls and a young Scottish lad down on holiday drew our attention to a large gull with a yellow colour ring on it. It was very white headed and with grey mantle and I aged it as a 3CY but it's tertials were masked by a Herring Gull which gave good comparison re head shape. I said I think this is a Caspian Gull and the Scots lad said that there had been two immature seen earlier in the morning. I took my eye off it for just a second to pickup my camera to take a shot of it and it was gone nowhere to be seen, but lucky enough I had the ring code X0A3. So I sent off an e-mail to the project which was in Germany and the details of the birds history came back almost immediately. See below.
Species - (Steppenmowe) Caspian Gull, Larus Cachinnans CR Yellow X0A3
Location Ringed - Hiddensee, Germany
Known History
02-05-2024 Gibratar Point Lincolnshire
13-09-2025 Mablethorpe Lincolnshire
15-10-2025 Hornsea Mere East Yorkshire.
So it was a nice find by the young birder and was some consolation for missing the Ring-necked Duck again.
On the 16th we met Derek and Kay at Tophill Low we added one species to our Yorkshire list with 7 Red-crested Pochard which were on the main reservoir and we had a Red Kite just before we left, otherwise it was species that we expected and we ended the day with 53 species which was 2 more than we had there back in the spring.
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| Curlew Tophill Low © Nick Hull |
Also here we came across our second species of Waxcap our first was Butter Waxcap in our garden just before we came up to Yorkshire in our garden. This one was Blackening Waxcap Hygrocybe conica.
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| Blackening Waxcap Hygrocybe conica © Nick Hull |
17th started as usual though we were not expecting much of any vismig but when to arrived at the links car par Craig was scanning the sky and as we exited the van he said looks like it's going to be good. So we joined him and like on the 13th the bird were coming over the carpark but slowly started drifting further to our left and were coming over the Middle Dyke area, so we moved up to the ridge around a hundred metres to our left giving us a better view inland and toward the sea to our right.
It soon became obvious that it was going to be a pretty good movement and at times the sky was dotted with Redwing and Fieldfare with lesser numbers of Brambling and a few Redpoll, Blackbirds and Skylark and Chaffinch. Craig phoned Keith to let him know it was happening at Brid Links as he was checking other locations eventually he joined us and by around 10 o'clock things started to slow down. Our tally of Redwing stood at 10,336, Fieldfare 2159, Brambling 15+ and Pink-footed Geese at just 14.
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| Pink-footed Geese passing high overhead © Nick Hull |
So Jackie and I headed off to South Landing and the Obs to get a coffee and see what had been netted in the morning. There was lots of people around the ringing station when we arrived where we met David our neighbour who was also on holiday in Yorkshire and whilst Jackie was chatting to Jen, David and I popped down the beach road a little way to see the Tawny Owl, it had been showing pretty well over the last couple of days. We then Jackie and Jen for a walk along the trail to the head but we didn't get all the way because as we approached the Highcliffe Lodge grounds we heard a Yellow-browed Warbler call. I managed to narrow it down as coming from an Holm Oak and eventually we had brief views. It was then we heard another and in fact had two birds calling one in the Holm Oak and one from the Sycamore next to it. Lunch time was approaching and the hunger was now setting in so back to the cafe, where we said goodbye to David who headed off while Jackie and I tucked into the delight of scrambled egg on toast and Jackie a bacon butty. After lunch feeling replete Jackie and I headed down to the beach, Jackie on her scooter, we stopped and had views of the Tawny Owl which had moved slightly from where had been earlier.
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| Tawny Owl - Flamborough South Landing © Nick Hull |
Down at the beach we added Oystercatcher, Curlew, Dunlin, Turnstone, Redshank and a male Common Scoter out on the sea, we couldn't see the Purple Sandpiper or the Grey Plover which had been around earlier. We finish our day at Bempton but without adding anything to our still growing list.
18th, again started at the Links vismig but after a couple of hours it was next to non existent recording only Starling 304; Redwing 1372+; Fieldfare 648+; Blackbird 43, Chaffinch 15; Brambling 6.
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| Fieldfare & Blackbirds Brid Links © Nick Hull |
On to the Obs where we found out we had missed a Ring Ouzel but we did see a very nice Grey Wagtail in the hand.
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| Grey Wagtail © Nick Hull |
Also we saw a Kestrel a species you don't often get the opportunity to see up close very often.
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| Kestrel Nick Hull |
The ringing station usually closes around 12 o'clock so we went off to RSPB Bempton Cliffs as we had heard that a Ring Ouzel was hanging around on the reserve. As we approached the car park we had to stop to allow a Red-legged Partridge to cross the road, our first of the year only having seen Grey up until that point. We parked and headed to the Dell on the way we ran into one of the volunteers and asked him where the best chance of seeing the Ring Ouzel was and he said the ringing hut. So we quickly, well as quick as Jackie could go, went and joined a crowd at the ringing station.
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| Immature male Ring Ouzel - Bempton RSPB © Nick Hull |
After seeing the Ouzel we went and viewed over the recently cultivated field from the Owl Viewpoint, here we saw our first grounded Brambling in with other finches and a scattering of Redwing and Song Thrush.
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| Song Thrush - Bempton RSPB © Nick Hull |
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| Redwing - Bempton RSPB © Nick Hull |
We left Bempton around 16:00hrs and headed back to the lodge to have a rest and have dinner to leave time for me to go back out to the Obs for a moth night.
Keith Clarkson gave us a brief summary, about the migrant moths that are caught between Flamborough and Filey and weather condition which are usually best, before we went out and checked the traps. Most of the moths caught in the traps that I looked at were familiar to me but there was two which I've not caught yet at home though one I've seen The Delicate which is fairly common in the Portland trap but it was the Feather Ranunculus that was the first time I've seen one.
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The Delicate Mythimna vitellina - Feathered Ranunculus Polymixis lichenea
Green-brindled Crescent Allophyes oxyacanthae - Mottled-Umber Erannis defoliaria |
The bottom two I've caught but only one or two in the 13 years I've trapped here in Upton. So the night went well.
The 19th was our last day birding at Flamborough. We spent the morning at the South Landing and walked the trail out to the headland and did a little sea-watch from the view point and managed to add a few species which we were missing. We added Eider, Red-throated Diver, Common Scoter and we managed to pick out the Grey Plover that had been on the beach for a few days along with the Turnstones and Curlews. We also watch the inshore lifeboat doing their practice launching and re-landing which looked pretty precarious from our vantage point.
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| RNLI approaching to the landing trailer and an almost submerged Tractor |
After spending the morning at the South Landing we had a fairly restful afternoon and explored around the site. We didn't see anything we hadn't already seen but found a couple of footpaths worth investigating in the future.
Back to Dorset next day on a very wet day.
