York Interlude 29 Mar - 4 April

Just back from a week in York. The weather was a lot better than we expected, and we were busy all week going to the many excellent attractions in and around York. But christ was it expensive. The National Trust Family membership paid for itself several times over.

We stayed here at a farm near Easingwold, and I managed to spend some time in morning and evening looking round the hedgerows and arable fields.

Highlight was the Tree Sparrows round the farm. it’s a long time since I’ve seen any, as there are very few in Herts or Dorset, and I spent a while trying to consign that “chupp chupp” call to my sub-conscious memory. Otherwise a Lesser Redpoll (another one I wasn’t sure where it would come from this year), calling Tawny Owl and Little Owl in the evening, (and a Tawny Owl seen in silhouette), Red-Legged Partridges, Fieldfares over, and various other birds that you’d expect. Away from the farm we had Nuthatch and Grey Wagtail at Fountains Abbey, Curlews at Borobridge, Marsh Tit at Rievaulx, and a Red Kite at Golden Acre Park just north of Leeds on the way back from my Mum’s.