These photos are from early April 2025. Our garden, Baildon Moor and Ben Rhydding Gravel Pits.
As usual you can tap/touch/click on an image, not its caption, to see it in better quality in the gallery.
In/From our garden
These are a few taken either in or from our garden.
Robins are one of the noisier birds in the garden and whenever I am out gardening they come quite close knowing that I will be disturbing and uncovering insects and worms.
The daytime shot of the Moon and all the surrounding vapour trails is from 1st April when the atmospheric conditions were just right for the formation of vapour trails. The photos were taken over a 90 minute period around 2 o’clock in the afternoon.
The night-time shot of the Moon was taken after the Shipley Camera Club meeting on 2nd April.
Baildon Moor
On 3rd April I spent some quiet time on Baildon Moor. Walking around I spotted the Stonechat, Lapwing and Buzzard.
I then sat down on the edge of the 11th fairway with my feet in a dry ditch and my camera on a tripod in front of me. Several golfers went through and also several people with dogs – only one of them on a lead. One owner came across to see what I was doing. His dog scattering a couple of Skylark as he came, the owner oblivious to this. Obviously he was not particularly knowledgeable about wild life and had not seen any of the signs about ground nesting birds. I told him I was watching Skylark and that if he wanted a chat could he put his dog an a lead please. He told me his dog was friendly, even though it was jumping around me and barking loudly, and carried on his way, presumably thinking that I was the unfriendly one.
Soon after that I moved to the edge of the 12th and tried to knee in front of my tripod without my legs aching too much. I then got much better views of feeding Skylark. I also watched a couple walk down another fairway, their dog, off a lead, following behind them but sticking its nose into the longer grass at the edge of the fairway – just the places that Skylark like to nest.
Both Skylark and Meadow Pipits have extended rear claws. I assume these allow the birds to walk along the grass to feed without being blown away.
Ben Rhydding Gravel Pits
On 6th April I should have known better than to go up to Baildon Moor again. Sunday, weekend, and people out with children and dogs. After watching stones from one of the walls being thrown about, a family with child and 2 dogs going into the long grass to throw balls for the dogs I decided to leave them to it and went to Ben Rhydding Gravel Pits local nature reserve.
At Ben Rhydding I saw a few families walking through. The kids were noisy with the enthusiasm, but it was because of their excitement with what they were looking for and finding, great to see.
I also spent a few minutes talking to a couple with binoculars and cameras about what was around.
It was good to see the Sand Martins wheeling about them swooping in to the sand bank where it looked as though several had already chosen their nests.
The Little Egret was chased off a couple of times by a Grey Heron.
I think the Chiffchaff were the most active with their calling but I had heard Blackcap quite a bit and was pleased to eventually spot one.
I spotted a Song Thrush snail anvil. The stone was darker than the others around due to the snails being broken on it by a Song Thrush, and it was surrounded by several broken snail shells.
I found an Owl pellet and used a stick to break it apart. I had a lot of fur keeping it tight but I did find a small lower jaw of a rodent.
During the walk I had to go through several swarms of tiny flying insects and at one point took some photos. The one here used 1/10s shutter speed. A couple of the flight paths look as though they have 50 wing beats in them which to my reckoning means that they are fluttering their wings 500 times per second.
Some early Bluebells were in evidence, though not as many as I had seen the previous month along the river Aire.
When I got back to my car I spent some time talking to a couple that were waiting for breakdown recovery for their motorbike. I’m pleased I stopped to chat to them because while we were talking I spotted two dark spots on the edge of the water in the field across the road. Further investigation identified them as Oystercatcher. And further watching revealed two Redshank working along the edges of the water.
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