On Time
On the 11th October I found my first Winter visitors in the form of 3 Jack Snipe feeding in a local bog. Ironically, without the help of an east wind, these birds had arrived only one day later than they did last year! Migration is amazing when you think that these tiny Snipe had left a bog in Lapland to spend winter in a Lancashire bog and their timing was only one day different. The odds are that these are the very same birds that made the journey there and back last year. www.facebook.com/gordonyateswildlife
Autumn is the time of year to arise early and go in search of early morning mists. These will highlight the overnight work of the Orb Spiders.You need a touch of dew to highlight the hundreds of webs in the moorland grasses. So far this Autumn we have had a couple of perfect mornings to go Spider hunting. www.facebook.com/gordonyateswildlife
Every year the Elderberry is the first of our trees to produce mature berries. These seldom last long as there are always Wood Pigeons and their young awaiting the Autumn feast. There are more photos on my Facebook page of the many Wood Pigeons and their juveniles that cleared our tree in only a matter of days.
In late July, when we were in Speyside, the temperature hit a record 31C on two days.It was only then that we realised that from a wildlife point of view not much happens in extreme heat – even the Ospreys stopped fishing! However,extreme heat is good for one form of wildlife – Dragonflies and Chasers. So I spent an enjoyable couple of hours filming dozens of Four Spotted Chasers that had made a small pond in the forest their home.
Last weeks blog was all about this years orange-eyed Long Eared Owls so this week it is the turn of the yellow-eyed Short Eared Owls. Two different males are included in the gallery photos on my Facebook page and with Shorties the face of the male goes whiter with age and the eyes a deeper yellow. Sadly because Shorties are more active diurnally than Longies and hunt along moorland roads they are more vulnerable to passing traffic. I know of two Shorties that have been killed on my local moors in the last five years – a sad end to a spectacular Owl. www.facebook.com/gordonyateswildlife
It is now more than 15years since I started the weekly blog in 2007. So here we are 780 entries later and this Spring something happened that I have waited all those years for – to film a hunting male Short Eared Owl in the morning followed by a hunting male Long Eared Owl in the evening – surely the ultimate Pennine challenge. Not only did it happen this Spring but it happened three times in one week! So this week we will celebrate with photos of two different male Long Eared Owls followed next week by a male Short Eared Owl – take your pick from the extensive galleries on my Facebook page. www.facebook.com/gordonyateswildlife