Another splendid and bucolic day out yesterday, at Potteric Carr, a nature reserve managed by Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. Like many other reserves in Yorkshire (especially South, East and West Yorkshire), it’s a post-industrial landscape, having been mined for coal and criss-crossed by railway lines. Each of the many hides overlooks a different pool or scrape, though most of the action was taking place in the sky rather than on the water. The highlight, for me, was seeing three hobbies (unless it was one hobby that I saw three times), hawking for insects. I’ve never before seen these beautiful raptors - amazingly agile in flight, like big swallows - in Yorkshire, which must represent the most northerly extent of their range.
Great crested grebes were in full breeding plumage, buzzards were finding the thermals, marsh harriers were quartering over the reed-beds and warblers were singing everywhere: willow warblers, chiffchaffs, sedge warblers, blackcaps and whitethroats. The locals were friendly (amazing how the accents change to South Yorkshire merely by driving for half an hour down the M18). I’ll be back. There may be more hobbies there in dragonfly season.
Symmetry at Potteric Carr...
No comments:
Post a Comment