Urban birding at Hull: Walk to Oak Road, Sutton Bridge and the Wilberforce Way.

 A cold morning with a light easterly wind bringing mist from the North Sea. I walk to Oak Road via Beverley Road and Ryde Street and Clough Road. At the Beverley and Barmston Drain there are no Little Grebes to be seen, but there is a congregation of nine Magpies atop a tree by the road. Oak Road is now a pleasure to walk, the place is regularly cleared of litter, it is a special place for bird song. Today a Song Thrush was singing. At the playing fields there is a pair of Mistle Thrushes. I walk on one side of Oak Road Lake as the path is still quite muddy. The family of Mute Swans still with two grown cygnets is resting on the shore, which is telling, probably there hasn't been many dog walkers earlier. A Cormorant is fishing in the lake.

Cormorant.

Mistle Thrush.

Greenfinch.

I move onto the river bank and walk upstream. The river is quite high with tide ebbing with a strong flow. Some Mallards rest by the banks. There are groups of gulls, on the flooded playing fields and on industrial roofs. A Herring Gull chases a Lesser Black-backed Gull that is carrying something.

The sweet chirrupy call of a Skylark calls my attention: one is just over, flying south, the first for me this year. I get to the Sutton Bridge, with its flock of Feral Pigeons, and admire the view from it towards the river.

 I've never walked the route on the other side, which is part of Wilberforce Way, so I descent the steps at the other side. The banks on this stretch of river are grassy, some times the banks are reinforced underneath. It is quite passable as it hasn't rained in the last few days, and interesting to look at the river from a different angle. There is a chatty group of Greenfinches on the bushes and trees of the side of the path. 

The view of Oak Road Lake area from the east bank.

Barge by the Croda site.

Once I get passed the Croda site I see the first Redshank. Later I spot two others, one of them looking like it's getting its summer plumage, more spotty than the plain grey winter one. 

The plainer Redshank.

The Redshank in breeding plumage.

Spot the Redshank!

A Grey Wagtail flies over and lands on the other side, at the bottom of metal piling with rocks. It appears to be hunting something at the roof of the defences, methodically going from one vertical gap to the next. The noise is deafening, as there are some massive cranes moving metal just meters away from the river.

Scrapyard over the Grey Wagtail site.

Grey Wagtail.

Grey Wagtail.

Grey Wagtail.

Soon I am by the Stoneferry Bridges and I make my way back home by Clough Road, then the same way I came.

The view from Stoneferry Bridges.