The Birds of Lancashire....

....in the first half of the 20th century from a book by Clifford Oakes. But first....

Shag. Philip Tomkinson.



Two extremely good photographs from PT's equally extremely good library, the first of which is the best image of its kind of a Shag you're ever likely to see, take a good look at how the bird has folded its wing/s over its breast, I've personally never witnessed this behaviour before, and....

Fulmar. Philip Tomkinson.

Another excellent image of the in flight Fulmar. PT's Website is always worth a look....I do regularly.

Browsing through Clifford Oakes book Birds of Lancashire published in 1953, I picked out one or two interesting notes on these four species.

Northern Golden Plover. In his notes on this species Oakes published two records of ringing recoveries even noting the numbers/letters of the rings, being....

Mark. X3298.
Ringed. Myvatn in Iceland on 26 July 1929.
Recovered. Hornby near Lancaster.
Date. 6 January 1930.

Mark. Sk A7396.
Ringed. Husavik Iceland.
Date. 27 July 1931.
Recovered. Formby N.Merseyside.
Date. 24 February 1933.

It is also interesting that Oakes only mentions one sighting of  a Little Ringed Plover and goes on to say not enough evidence was collected to support the sighting at Worsley - now being in Greater Manchester - on 9 May 1946.

He also only mentions one Kentish Plover being that of the first record of the species for Lancashire at Bury Reservoir on 20 August 1947. Bury is now within Greater Manchester and is therefore no longer in the County of Lancashire. The first record of a Kentish Plover in Lancashire now stands with a bird at Lytham on the Fylde coast on 19 August 1963.

Sociable Plover. Oakes records the first British specimen which was shot whilst with Lapwings at St Michael's on Wyre in the autumn of 1860. Whilst this bird is referred to/called Sociable Plover by Oakes it is now known as the Sociable Lapwing.

Clement. Courtesy of BTO.

Clement is still in the south of France, east of Toulon. The Cuckoos tracking systems are due an update and if you're interested when they are it will be HERE

Birds on the brink.

Please take a look at this interesting video on the Sociable Lapwing. It's four minutes long and mostly talk but I enjoyed what I heard and I think you will too.

This video also highlights some tracking studies being undertaken on the Sociable Lapwing. The species is one of around 200 critically endangered birds throughout the world. Fascinating stuff which we should all take an interest in albeit some methods in the high tech 21st century may have some of us wondering if we really should be interfering with nature to this extent.

If you use the link in my sidebar 'BirdLife International' you'll find plenty of interest with much more reading on the Sociable Lapwing including a record count for the country of at least 90 Sociable Lapwings found at Salalah in Oman on 25 December 2010, plus all manner of bird related things some subjects of which make for 'hard to take' reading. 

I'D SOONER BE BIRDING!....but won't be until Monday at the earliest.