Day trip to Yorkshire

Not quite as early as I would have liked to head over to West Yorkshire, but very enjoyable and worthwhile. We took a rare opportunity of a day off & nothing in the diary to visit a relatively new RSPB reserve at Great Preston near Leeds, RSPB St Aidan’s, never having been before we were given a very warm & friendly welcome by staff, a site map & a brief outline of what was about. We were told we may see, Black neck grebe, Black headed gull, Bittern, Common terns breeding, the usual Canada geese, Greylag geese, also that a Kestrel & Little owl we’re nesting. Also dragon flies too. So we headed off on the Reedbed ramble, which is a flat route and approximately 3 miles. We quickly came across some very nosey & obliging Greylags, followed by a Blackheaded gull, perched on the No fishing sign, using the Swarovski STX 95 & the new Celestron NexYZ universal phonescoping adapter, some great results for the first outing of the NexYZ on a bright sunny day. So pressing on to see what else was about, to see Bittern fly over then Coots with chicks & Great Crested Grebes on the nest with eggs. Finally time to head back & almost back to the information centre & a Kestrel caught our eye, thinking it was with a youngster initially but after looking through the binoculars & getting a little closer we found it to be the little owl. The Kestrel flew up & perched high on the drag line & the Little owl was very obliging & perched in a more viewable position. We got nice pictures of both but a little bit of reflection on the owl. All in all a great day, I would definitely recommend a visit & we will definitely be back 😊 Images & video phonescope with Swarovski Optik Nature STX 95 & iPhone