Archive for February, 2021

All winter, in a neighbours garden, there has been a Hawthorne with large red berries on. No thrushes have been tempted to eat them until we had the snow and frost the other week. Then, several Fieldfares appeared from nowhere and began to remove the berries and take them to the field nearby where they could finish them off.  Apples were also provided and welcomed by the hungry thrushes. I had a hide in the garden all week and got the photos I was after in perfect winter conditions.                             Gallery photos   http://www.facebook.com/gordonyateswildlife

During the frosty and snowy weather of last week I had a nice surprise. I was checking for Jack Snipe along a local stream and disturbed a wading bird with a brilliant white rump. I knew immediately that this was the ultimate winter visitor and only the second that I had seen locally in more than 50years – it was a Green Sandpiper. It breeds in the forests of Lapland and is a very wary subject.
Gambling on it returning to the place where I found it I hid under a camouflage cloth and waited. Twenty minutes later it flew back in and in ten minutes I had my photos before it flew off, never to be seen again? to view gallery  visit. www.facebook.com/gordonyateswildlife

Generally this winter has been very poor for Winter visitors with one exception – Jack Snipe. I have several sites where I go to in the hope of finding a Jack Snipe and since the first one I found on the 9th October I have seen 152!! Sadly every one of those found has flown off underfoot and I have obtained no photographs. All that changed this week when I found Jack Snipe number 153. It froze and I obtained dreamed of photos of a Jack Snipe that still thought it was camouflaged – even in the snow!! click here

After 52years of filming wildlife I am often asked what is the best day I have ever had in the field. Its a difficult choice.
You would have thought that having filmed sixty one pairs of Hen Harriers at the nest it would have been been one of those – but it is not. Or was it the day I spent three hours at a Woodcocks nest followed by three hours at a Merlins nest then two hours with Tawny Owls – but its not even that.
The best day occurred relatively recently in 2014. During the morning I filmed my first ever Nightjar with young in south Derbyshire. I then came home, drove up to Bowland where I spent two hours at dusk filming a pair of Barn Owls that had six young on the ground in a barn. This weeks gallery photos shows the moment when the male Barn Owl passed prey to the female followed by a view of all six young – it doesn’t get any better than that!! click here