A Norwegian ringed Black-headed Gull at Chatsworth

I'm always on the lookout for colour ringed birds and came across this adult Black-headed Gull today in front of Chatsworth House. It was ringed as an adult last summer in Kristiansand, Norway 800km away.

Surprisingly I saw another Little Egret flying down river at Chatsworth.

Black-headed Gull

Little Egrets - Youlgrave

 I was very surprised to see two Little Egrets together on Harthill Pond, particularly since the pond was almost completely frozen. Checking in my notes it was last August when I last saw one locally, at Chatsworth, and it was last April when I saw one at Youlgrave. My thoughts that they might become established locally have certain not been realised yet.

Little Egrets

The juvenile Pink-footed Goose was still with the Greylags and there was a nice group of 15 Teal displaying on the small area of open water.

Pink-footed Goose with Greylags

I walked up the Monsal Trail from Bakewell yesterday and came across a nice party of Waxwing at the edge of the town, by the A619 road bridge. There were still Waxwings at Hassop Station with plenty of admirers taking photos. There were also several Fieldfare and Redwing taking advantage of the apples that have been left for them. Surprisingly there still looks to be plenty of berries on the Hawthorns south of the station.

Fieldfare

Dipper on the Lathkill

 A singing male Dipper did a bit of display to its mate on the Lathkill this morning, in very cold weather. The male was ringed and I thought its partner might be as well.

Dipper

I've seen a little bit of Goshawk activity in the sunny weather but the lack of wind has prevented any prolonged display.

Northern Goshawk - subadult male

Waxwings are still feeding by Hassop Station car park but numbers are starting to decline with 30 reported there today, and with 35 reported at the Agricultural Centre in Bakewell this morning, it looks like they are starting to look for berries elsewhere.

Peregrine Falcons

I photographed this pair of Peregrine Falcons close to Beeley Moor today. It's quite unusual, for me at least, to see a pair in such close proximity away from a nest site and gives a useful size comparison, with the larger female on the right. 

The male has an almost complete black hood, there is considerable variation in the width of the malar stripe but I can't recall having seen such a dark headed bird in the UK before.

Peregrine Falcon - male left, female right

Red Kite = Chatsworth

I've mentioned previously that Red Kites are generally absent locally from October to February, but this year I have seen single birds in each of the winter months so far. Today there was a bird at Chatsworth and I've had further reports of birds in the Bakewell, Beeley, Baslow area so it looks like one or two birds have remained here over the winter. This is presumably related to the very mild weather we have experienced for most of this period.

Red Kite

I called in to see the Waxwings at Hassop Station and there were still around a hundred birds in the area, with a similar number reported today. It can't be long until all the berries are gone and it will be interesting to see where they go next. 

Displaying Mandarin

Mandarin leave the rivers in the autumn and winter on small lakes or ponds. Linacre Reservoir appears to be a favourite but they can also be found on smaller ponds closer to home such as those in Ladygrove or Ashford Lake where I photographed these birds displaying, in a group of about 30 yesterday.

Mandarin Duck - drake

Waxwings are still the main attraction of the winter with around 200 birds at Hassop Station on the Monsal Trail feeding on Hawthorn berries. There have been occasional sightings of 1 or 2 birds in Darley Dale but no larger groups.

The Hawfinch are back at Cromford with 5 birds seen fairly regularly.

Hoping for some better weather in the New Year!

Waxwing numbers increasing in Darley Dale

 The first two Waxwing were joined by 5 more on Thursday and they were there again this morning, but numbers jumped up this afternooon with at least 22 birds present in the same area opposite the Whitworth.Either sat at the top of the tall Lime trees and occasionally flying up to catch flies or deeding on a Rowan bush.

They all flew off north around 14:45, presumably going to roost.

Waxwing

Waxwing in Darley Dale

 Since returning from France last week I've been checking the berry bushes Waxwing have used in the past and was successful this morning when I found two birds feeding on Rowan berries on Columbell Way, opposite the Whitworth. 

Almost immediately they flew up in to the large Lime trees by the A6 and sat there for a while where I was able to get a record photo. I looked away and they disappeared but hopefully they will return to feed on the tree which still has plenty of berries.

Surprisingly, the female Teal is still on the Whitworth Pond.

I've checked the flooded field for gulls, plenty of Black-headed, single Common but just 3 Lesser Black-backed so far.

Waxwing

Green Woodpecker - Beeley Village

Back after two weeks away, and it looks like I've missed the Waxwings so no photos I'm afraid. Still, there's a good chance that some more will turn up I think.

Apart from the Waxwings I don't think I've missed too much although a Great Grey Shrike has taken up residence at Ramsley reservoir which would be nice to see, if it would just come a little closer.

Walked round Chatsworth yesterday which produced a Green Woodpecker at the back of Beeley village, only my third record this year. It's a surprisingly scarce bird locally and I just seem to pick up occasional wandering birds.

Green Woodpecker - probably adult female, with the black moustache

Waxwings at last!

 After an absence from the area of five years, Waxwings have finally arrived!

Seven were seen at the entrance to Peak Village, Rowsley and a further nine were seen flying from Churchtown towards the A6 in Darley Dale.

There are still plenty of berries in the area so hopefully they will stay for a while.

Common Kingfisher at Chatsworth

It's been a fairly quiet week for me but the frequent rainy days has given me the time to write up my recent trip to Georgia. That said it was a beautiful day today so Pam and I walked to Chatsworth, nothing special on the bird front but we had great views of a Kingfisher on the river in front of the House.

A skein of 52 Pink-footed Geese flew south over the house yesterday.

Common Kingfisher - male judging by the all black bill

Common Crossbill - Matlock Forest

 Although I've managed to see Common Crossbills in every month this year the numbers were generally very low until the autumn. I was only seeing 3 or 4 birds regularly through the summer and it was not possible to confirm whether they bred, although I have done so in the past. 

In August numbers increased and I had a flock of 30 and there have been regular reports of 30-40 since then, primarily in Fourty Acre and Seventy Acre Plantations. It's difficult to be certain of the numbers because they are not always together and are not easy to count unless you get a clear view of a flock in flight. I got photos of a group of 12 this morning although as usual they were at the very top of the conifers.

Common Crossbill

There was some passage of Pink-footed Geese over the moor this morning, I had three skeins totalling 220 birds but there have been reports of larger numbers elsewhere in the County.

Pink-footed Geese.

I saw several Brambling this morning but no large flocks yet and still no Waxwing although there have been up to 16 at in the Crosspool area of Sheffield so not too far away now.

Caspian Gull - Upperloads

 It seems to be all gulls at the moment with another Caspian Gull today in a ploughed field on Syda Lane,

The field was proving quite an attraction as there were also around 40 Lesser Black-backed, 3 Herring and a Common Gull plus a nice party of 67 Golden Plover and around 40 Lapwing.

It's possible that th Caspian Gull is the same bird that I saw in Darley Dale last week I guess.

There were several hundred Fieldfare on the moor and the first signs of Woodpigeons on the move with over 1000 birds counted flying SW.

Caspian Gull

I picked up some more news on the Great Northern Diver reported at Chatsworth, what must surely have been the same bird was phptographed on the Derwent in Belper yesterday. So it had almost certainly drifted down river through Darley Dale and Matlock. An amazing record.

Yellow-legged Gull - Chatsworth

Following last weeks Caspian I came across an adult Yellow-legged Gull today in the fields just north of Chatsworth House. It was present for about 30 minutes with around 50 Lesser Black-backed Gulls before the flock was disturbed and they moved off to the south. 

Adult Yellow-legged and Lesser Black-backed Gulls

I didn't see much else but a juvenile Great Northern Diver was reportedly on the river south of the House on Monday (30th October) which I would have loved to have seen.

Caspian Gull - Darley Dale

 As usual the flood waters between Darley Dale and Darley Bridge at Four Lane Ends have attracted large numbers of gulls this week. I've spent several hours checking through them each day this week but apart from one or two Herring and up to a dozen Common Gulls I hadn't managed to find anything else until this morning when I picked out an adult Caspian Gull.

Caspian Gull - adult

The number of gulls on the flooded fields were fairly static until this morning with around 500 Lesser Black-backed and 600 Black-headed but there were more birds this morning with 700-800 Lesser Black-backed and i estimated over 1000 Black-headed.

Lesser Black-backed and Black-headed Gulls on the flooded fields

The water level is steadily falling so without further rain the fields may dry out in the next couple of days.

A female Eurasian Teal has been resident in the Whitworth for about 10 days now, it's the first I can recall there.

I had a Northern Wheatear on the moor on the 17th October which I suspect will be my last. 

Northern Wheatear - female

There have been several sightings of Hen Harriers on the moor with both 'ringtails' (females or immatures) and an adult male so hopefully they will remain for the winter.

I was away for the big Redwing arrival on 9th October when several thousand were seen over Beeley Moor and 21k were counted over Ogston. There are still good numbers of Redwings around with plenty of Fieldfare and upto a dozen Brambling have been seen.