A few from April 2025

I have already posted an entry for May without finishing off April, so that is what this one is doing. It involves walks along the river Aire and Leeds Liverpool Canal including Denso Marston Nature Reserve, and a trip to Rodley Nature Reserve. And includes Rusty bikes, Broom, Gorse, Green Beetles, Ducklings, Dragons, Dampers, Treecreepers, Sandpipers, Oystercatchers and a few other goodies.

The header image is of a pair of Oystercatcher with their chick.

Apart from the header image, as usual, you can tap/touch/click on an image, not its caption, to see it in better quality in the gallery.

25th & 27th

On these two days I walked along the river Aire and the Leeds Liverpool Canal.

25th

On the 25th it was quite a short walk from the path down to Denso Marston Nature Reserve, up to the Buck Lane footbridge, over to the canal for a while and then back again.

The Aire Rivers Trust Volunteers were having their lunch near the bridge and I let them know I had just dropped off a photo of one of their volunteers at Albion Mills. On the way over the bridge I could see a kid’s bike that they had propped up pending its removal once lunch was over so that it could be taken away with the mountain of other rubbish they had removed.

The Gorse and Broom were on the canal side, across the river and up the bank from DMNR.

27th

On the 27th it was a longer walk that started with going through DMNR and along the river to the footbridge at the end of Lower Holme and then back along the canal, and finally back along the river to the DMNR entrance.

River

The Blackbird at the reserve has a ring on its leg. Turning it upside down and zooming in it reads:-

NH MUS....
SW7....
L-X....

I am not an expert on the types of rings but a bit of digging says that this ring was issued by the Natural History Museum and the SW7 is part of the postcode for the Natural History Museum, Cromwell Rd., South Kensington, London, SW7 5BD so that when the ring is read fully, the rest of the L-X number, it can be reported to the right people.

Yet again the Wrens were belting out their song. The volume that these tiny birds, including the Robins and Chiffchaffs, can produce is amazing. Or so I thought until I had a walk around RSPB St Aidans; but I have yet to write about that.

The sequence of these photos is the same as the order in which I took them walking along the river.

The Green Dock Beetles (green body and green legs) and Green Veined White were in the reserve. I have a vague memory of reading that behaviour like this is when the male is trying to protect the eggs as its offspring, but perhaps that was Frogs.

The Green Veined White looks rather good on the Field Mustard and against the green/yellow background. It didn’t seem to be bothered by the insect that kept flying between its wings. It looks like a tiny Parasitoid wasp, could it be a Cotesia glomerata wasp that lays its eggs in the caterpillars of Pieris butterfly species which includes the Green Veined White, Pieris napi.

These Mallard Ducklings were the first of the year for me. They were on the river at the back of the Stainforth Construction at Butterfield Park, Fred Atkinson Way.

The Squirrel was just a bit further on towards Shipley where you can see that someone has cut a recess in the tree it is on. The recess has bird seed in it. There are also bird feeders hanging in some of the trees. These are quite close the the houses on Berry Close so it could be the work of people living there or people working at businesses nearby.

The Peacock butterfly and the Dunnock were just before the footbridge at Lower Holme, which is where I crossed the river to get to the canal.

Canal

The House Sparrow was singing away on the light fitting of ASE Autogate on Dock Lane while I was on the way between the river and the canal.

Just beyond the Rail bridge and swing bridge over the canal I came across the Yorkshire Sharks training near Carnaud Metalbox. They store their boats in the field/gardens just beyond the Carnaud Metalbox car park. They looked like a keen bunch.

The Damper, Stockbridge Damper to give it its fullname, is fastened to overhead power cables to suppress wind-induced vibrations in the cable. Some of this cableing is comparitively new and not long after it had been installed I found several dampers left nearby on the ground. I was surprised how heavy they are – easily a couple of Kgs.

Further along the canal, where the banks (??) widen before dropping down towards the river I finally got sight of a Blackcap. I had been hearing them for a while but they are easily hidden by leaves and branches. This one is a female with a brown cap.

Chiffchaff can be a little easier to spot because they tend to be a little more exposed towards the top of the trees. Unfortunately, with them being a small bird at the top of the tree, it often means that they are too far away to get a decent photo.

River again

From the canal I went over the Buck Lane footbridge where Kenilworth Ivy was growing on some of the Piers. Down on the weir a very upright Grey Heron was paused between crouching over the river and looking for fish. And a Grey Wagtail was leaping and catching flies. It was not eating them so the flies were intended for young somewhere.

A little further up river a Treecreeper was looking as though it was around its nest. Then near the entrance to DMNR a Kingfisher seemed to be watching the sky instead of looking for fish. Perhaps it was aware of the threat of the Mink that was not far away.

30th

On 30th I had a walk around DMNR and then some time at Rodley Nature Reserve.

DMNR

At the DMNR pond several tables were set out with trays for pond dipping, they already had water in them from the pond. They therefore already had lots of interesting little things in there. Several Mayfly nymphs were running about as was Cadisfly larva but I couldn’t get a decent view of it.

Rodley Nature Reserve

After the quick trip to DMNR I went to Rodley Nature Reserve. The pair of Great Crested Grebe looked good posing with each other. It was good to see the Common Sandpiper, though I am not good at the ID for those birds, or many others come to that. But the star was the Oystercatcher chick. When the parents found some food they would put it on the ground and encourage the chick to feed on it.

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