Wild at Hull: Urban birding at Hull: around Freetown Way

Friday, 24 April 2020

Urban birding at Hull: around Freetown Way

Since the lockdown, I've been enjoying my daily exercise walking - and birding - in urban areas that I've rarely explored around the city, within a couple of miles from home. Today I decided to walk to the north of the Old Town and then towards the end of the Beverley and Barmston drain. It was another sunny, warm day, to which we are becoming accustomed during lockdown, with less wind than we've had recently.
My first stop in town was the little square by the main entrance of Hull New Theatre: Kingston Square, and what a gem that was (top shot). As I arrived I heard a Greenfinch singing. There is a little green space on the square, with mature trees including a large elm with its trunk clothed in Ivy. The streets around were wonderful to walk along too. The Hull History centre is surrounded by some green space. The crab apple hedge was at it's best.

Usually Freetown Way is a very busy road, not today, no need to use the button in crossings to make it across the road. I made my way to the Beverley and Barmston drain via Charles St and Bridlington Ave.

I was hoping to catch up with the breeding Swallow pair in the bridges, but they weren't about today. Blackcaps sung from the marginal vegetation. No signs of other warblers today. I may visit this area again in a couple of weeks.

On the way back home, I popped in the Amazing Play community garden, where a nursery web spider fed on some prey.

Singing blackbird. I liked how it was propped by its tail onto the roof.

Nursery web spider with prey.

The birding fun of the day didn't end with me returning home. At lunchtime, while looking for my 'bug of the day' I happened to look up. No mobbing calls or calls from them, but there were four buzzards flying quite low over the garden, having some sort of interaction. This was definitely a first for me. Buzzard sightings have become a bit of a regularity since lockdown started, but having four individuals, lunging to each other, legs dangling, was a great sight.