We managed to get away for a couple of days mid-week to Masham, North Yorkshire. A nice stroll along the river Ure leads to Marfield Wetlands, for some bird spotting. Also, on the way home we stopped briefly at RSPB St. Aidan’s.
We have been to Masham several times. It’s not far away, the campsite (Old Station) is good, Masham has THE best chippy (Harry’s), there’s the Black Sheep brewery, a few good pubs and the Wetland; so what’s not to like!
The Wetlands
A short walk from the campsite takes us to the River Ure and then onto the wetlands.
In terms of birds there wasn’t a great deal of variety; probably not the best time of year yet. The photos aside are Lapwing, Great Crested Grebe and a Greylag Goose.
There were also Canadian Geese, Swans, Ducks, Partridge and Heron – ah, yes, the Heron. If you don’t want to see the Heron having a big lunch, I suggest you skip the next section!
Not for the faint hearted
There is a viewing area (not a hide), where you can watch small birds coming to some feeders near the edge of one of the lakes. It’s good to watch them for a little while. The usual suspects are Tits, Nuthatch, Tree Sparrow, Chaffinch and Dunnock. Whilst we were watching a Heron appeared on the edge of the lake with something in its beak; turns out it was a Mallard duckling. It was shaking the duckling as well as dunking it in the water. It was quite brutal to watch! I’ve seen Heron with frogs and I know they do go for other prey, but this duckling was pretty big.
The Heron continued treating the duckling this way for a couple of minutes, before getting it into a position to ‘down it in one’! It was astonishing (and brutal) to watch this play out. Also, quite unbelievable to see the duckling disappear down the Heron’s throat. But hey; that’s nature!
To leave the wetlands on a better note …
here’s a few images of some of the birds taken from the feeder viewing area.
There’s usually a constant stream of ‘common’ small birds visiting the feeders and sometimes fighting for position. The images show Chaffinch, Great Tit and Nuthatch.
RSPB St. Aidan’s
On our way home from Masham, we made a last minute decision to visit St Aidan’s for our lunch stop. It was mid afternoon and a bit dull, but we had a walk around one of the lakes to see what could be spotted; I know it’s a great place to visit at the right time of day/year. The photos are of Sand Martins and a Black-Headed Gull. A bit of a challenge photographing the Sand Martins as they’re small, hardly keep still and move very fast.
