At the end of May we had a trip to Howden for a birthday party at Bishop’s Bar & Bistro on Vicar Lane and on Sunday 1 June I went for a walk with my camera along a public footpath between the fields off Station Road and the new build of Agar Crescent etc. The last time I went for a walk along there I saw several Roe Deer where the houses are now. According to an old map the walk is alongside Paternoster Bank.
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Birds
One of the noticeable things about Howden is the number of House Sparrows you can hear. There are places in Baildon that have Sparrows but in Howden they seem to be everywhere. This is probably because of all the farmland around and the crops grown.
Over in the field there was an area that was cleared and muddy. Towards the edge of it was a Linnet, a little smaller than a House Sparrow. It is a seed eater too, getting its name from its fondness for Hemp seeds and Flax seeds.
Behind the Linnet were patches of water and on the edges of it were House Martins collecting mud for their nests and then flying with it to the new build houses. One of them skimmed over the water. It didn’t look to have its beak open so perhaps it was wetting the mud a bit or perhaps washing its chest.
In the top left corner of the last House Martin photo you can see a Little Ringed Plover. I spotted three of them wandering around. There could easily have been more because several times I could only see one. Where had the others gone? Others could have been hiding in the same way.
A Lapwing spent some time on the dried mud and then flew off. It was noticeable that its wings were pointed. Often when I see Lapwing, especially in flocks, their wings are square with “fingers”.
Below, in the section I have labelled Howden you can see a photo of what the path is like. On a previous walk along hear I spotted a Yellow Hammer and on this visit I think I heard one. On this visit I did hear Wren, Robin, (juvenile in the photo), Great Tit, Blue Tit, Dunnock and Whitethroat.
It would have been nice to get closer to the birds but with a ditch in the way and it being very open they would have flown away as soon as I showed myself.
Howden
The photos of the birds were taken with my Canon RF 200-800mm long lens and so were the first two here. I also had a Sigma 18-50mm that I used to take the wider views. The view over the rooves (showing my age there) of Howden Minster shows a couple of Wood Pigeon and a Jackdaw. It also shows on the carvings on the top looking as though it is starting to lean.
The St Cuthbert’s Howden Masonic Lodge number 360 is on Selby Road.
Most of Howden looks clean and well cared for and several buildings, like Kitchens, 38 Bridgegate, have Howden Civic Society Outstanding Building Award plaques. The award started in 1985 and in the more recent years plaques were given. This makes 28 Bridgegate, across the road from the Press Association, stand out. Missing gutters, missing downpipes, peeling paint work and rotting woodwork. At least, with the missing gutters, there is nowhere for Buddleia to grow, which is something common in Bradford.
All the new buildings going up has resulted in quite a bit of rubbish collecting along the Paternoster Bank but I am sure that will be cleared up.
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The images are published under the Creative Commons, BY-NC-SA license. Feel free to share them, edit them, but please keep my name in the credits. And if I have got the ID of anything wrong please let me know, I don’t consider myself an expert but I have write something. It is often a best guess and it would take up too much room to say It could be this, or it could be… or perhaps.
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