Our annual Through the night birding trip began with a 11am start from Newhey and ended with an M62 induced end at 2am (more of that later) As we headed past Leeds a few Red Kites were seen swooping and gliding effortlessly over the adjacent fields. Our first stop was to be Wykeham (or as one of our team calls it why come) The news that a couple of Honey Buzzards had been seen an hour or so this morning, had us feeling that we might have a chance of seeing one! After four visits to Wykeham this year and not having seen anything other than Buzzards etc it came as no surprise that after 2 hours searching we saw only Buzzards! Then suddenly, I managed to pick up a lone Goshawk and enjoyed watching the bird for around 5 minutes whilst it flushed the local Wood Pigeon flock, excellent. We also managed to see Tree Pipit, Crossbill & Kestrel and the Honey Buzzard lived to fight another day!
We headed to a place that we have been visiting for a few years in search of Turtle Doves (please dont ask me for the location) after much searching we were rewarded with 3 birds flying around and 1 perched on some wires in the distance. A lone cuckoo showed very well flying above us. A Marsh Tit was another highlight singing its little head off. A visit to this area would not be complete without a visit to a well-known Fish & Chip shop for our evening meal, it was good!
Our final call was at Sutton Bank to enjoy The finest view in England which we did after a real heavy downpour. The view was quite stunning as the heat dried out the soaked landscape making fluffy patches of mist in the valleys etc. As the sun went down we got ready to face the insects applying lots of Deet etc and wrapping up well as the temperature dropped. After a couple of hours hunkered down, we saw the first Woodcock roding around the area making its usual strange noises. Then in the distance a European Nightjar was heard, what an evocative sound they make its called churring More Woodcock seen and with a Nightjar sounding much closer we hoped for a small sighting of the bird, but it was not to be. At 11pm we headed for home and were making very good time until we found out that the M62 had been closed at the Ainley Top junction near Huddersfield. Talk about smart motorways giving us information about closures, accidents etc not a thing we got and found ourselves in a stood still traffic jam at 12-30am. Eventually someone decided that we should head off the motorway and go over the A640, which lots of cars in the jam did, along with ourselves, not done that manoeuvre we all thought. We reached Newhey by 1-30am having had a good days/ nights adventure, that bldyM62 has, as usual, used up many hours of peoples lives!!
