BIRDING THE LUNE ESTUARY THE FOREST OF BOWLAND AND BEYOND..............................................................................SCAUP CONDER POOL 5 MARCH PAUL ELLIS

Sunday 19 November 2017

The GP's Have It For Me.

Greenshank. Conder Pool Friday 17 November. Pete Woodruff.


A snoozing Greenshank on Conder Pool was good enough to get me off to a nice start on Friday morning, 17 Wigeon were also of note here, and the 180 Teal at Conder Green were split between the pool and creeks, where I found 7 Little Grebe and the Common Sandpiper which was down by the now finished and newly painted bridge....must have cost a fortune.

The Lune Estuary was quiet wader wise, apart from the presence of the usual several hundred Lapwing, 320 Dunlin and 7 Snipe, with c.350 Wigeon seen.

The Cockersand at least 500 Whooper Swan were initially in the field by Bank Houses as seen from the headland, but by the time I got there they had been disturbed and were eventually scattered over five fields. On Plover Scar, c.450 Oystercatcher, and little more than a two handed number of Turnstone, Redshank, and Dunlin. A Mistle Thrush and single Fieldfare again, seen by the cover crop on Slack Lane.

When the tide had dropped, 22 Black-tailed Godwit and 4 Bar-tailed Godwit were feeding off Crook Farm.

A Goldcrest was in our garden Saturday morning.

The Grey Plover.


Grey Plover. Brian Rafferty.

At high tide on Friday, Plover Scar held a quite decent count of 14 Grey Plover, almost certainly my best ever count at any time of the year at Cockersand.

The Grey Plover had it for me today, a wader that breeds in the high Arctic regions of Russia, from where they migrate to winter in areas throughout the world including Britain, making it one of the most globally widespread of all the wader species, though none of our Lancashire estuaries currently supports internationally important numbers of Grey Plover.

Thanks to Bob for his Greenshank header image, and to Brian for his Grey Plovers, excellent and much appreciated.

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