By The Left....Quick March.

Well it wasn't a quick march at all, and I did'nt have the time to loiter and stand around as much as I would have liked, and was needed to do justice to my birding, but this was the hike on Tuesday to Glasson Dock from Lancaster Greyhound Bridge, with a moderate 39 species notched up.

Notable was the lone Ruff which had the flood at Aldcliffe entirely to itself. On the Wildfowlers Pool a Green Sandpiper was seen with a few uncounted Teal, a Little Grebe, and a Snipe. On Freeman's Pools, up to 90 Wigeon, a Raven was mobbed by a Carrion Crow at Stodday, and my second sighting in two days was of a Green Woodpecker around Nansbuck Cottage.

Other notes along the coastal path, 12 Little Egret on the marsh, 11 Robin, 5 Blackbird, 3 Long-tailed Tit, a Goldcrest, and a Mistle Thrush. At Conder Green where I had no time to check out Conder Pool, I saw a Greenshank down the channel, and c.250 Golden Plover came off the Lune Estuary to fly south inland....but the bus to Lancaster is coming!

Pied Crow. Pete Woodruff.

What's this then....I'd describe it as a partially leucistic Carrion Crow, but maybe the Pied Crow Corvus motley seen at Lancaster Green Ayre on Tuesday 11 October, is a first for Britain!!

The Little Egret.

Little Egret. Bob Bushell

On Friday evening 7 October, 159 went to roost at Ashton Hall Lake, on the same evening 119 went to roost at Leighton Moss RSPB Reserve....that's an amazing 278 Little Egret at just two locations in North Lancashire. 

The Little Egret wasn't seen in the UK in significant numbers until 1989, they bred for the first time 20 years ago on Brownsea Island, Dorset in 1996. The first breeding record of Little Egret in Lancashire was in 2014 when up to six nests were occupied at Ashton Hall Lake, at the time the only breeding site in the county.

Thanks for the Little Egrets Bob....Excellent.