Yorkshire Wildlife Trust Potteric Carr & Doncaster Lakeside

I thought I would just do one post for a couple of quick visits we had to two places in Doncaster.

Firstly YWT Potteric Carr reserve.A fantastic reserve and one of our favourites to visit on a day off.
A walk around the cold and frosty reserve on a Sunday morning.
Blue Tit at the feeding station.

 Blackbird searching for food underneath the leaf litter.

 The Mute Swans had taken over the only bit of unfrozen lake available.

 Ice on the logs.

 One of 4 grey squirrels at the feeding station at Willow Hide

 Great Tits fighting for the bird table.

 The star of the day, a Water Rail seen at Cottage Drain Hide.

 A flock of 8 bullfinches graced the tree tops.

 One of a pair of Little Egrets flying around the reserve.

 The kingfisher was in his usual place down on the Mother Drain.

 Quite a few Long Tailed Tits near to the visitor centre.

Doncaster Lakeside

Just a couple of minutes away from Potteric Carr is Doncaster Lakeside.Its a village outlet shopping park with the towns football ground but the highlight for me is obviously the large lake and wildlife on it.

It has mallards,tufted ducks,canada geese,mute swans,coots,little grebes,black headed gulls,great crested grebes,gadwall & cormorants.

Mallard coming in for landing

 Black-headed Gull

 Tufted Ducks

 In this one you can see the nictitating membrane closing to protect the eye as it dives.

 Canada Geese flying over.

 Mute Swan

 Little Grebe or Dabchick

 Great Crested Grebe

Thanks again for looking through my photos.:)

First trip to our local patch in 2014 - Messingham Sand Quarry

It was only 90 minutes at the reserve in Messingham, North Lincs. but it was enough time to see quite a few birds.
On arrival into the carpark I was greeted with the sight of 3 common buzzards circling the pine trees.
Not a great pic but this was the closest one of the 3.

The usual woodland birds were at the edge of the carpark enjoying seed put down by other visitors.
Coal Tit

Blackbird

1 of several robins chasing each other around the feeding area.

After spending time at Grebe Lake looking for an otter without success, a walk through the woods produced a flash of white down the tree trunk and the appearance of a treecreeper.

Onto the duck hide overlooking the main lake.There were several shelducks to the left of the hide.They always seem to favour this side maybe just keeping out of the way of the hundreds of greylags.

The greylags, about 200 this day were their usual entertaining selves with birds having baths, fighting and calling loudly when other groups of geese flew onto the lake.
Greylag Geese

Leaving the hide and heading back the other way through the pines I noticed a small bird flitting about the base of a tree in the brambles.My first Goldcrest of the year but I only managed to get this photo as it turned and flew further into the trees.

On leaving the reserve, at the gate this stunning male kestrel was on the phone cable surveying the hedgerows for food.

So not bad for a quick 90 minutes around the reserve.Total bird sightings were:

3 Coal Tits

6 Robins

2 Dunnocks

6 Blackbirds

2 Blue Tits

4 Chaffinches

3 Buzzards

1 Treecreeper

1 Goldcrest

200 Greylags

7 Shelducks

15 Cormorants

12 Mute swans

40+ Black Headed Gulls

1 Bullfinch

10 Coots

1 Kestrel

plus 2 Grey squirrels

Thanks for reading:)