Apparently A Good Afternoon!

If you happen to like wet and windy weather, then you've probably been a very happy chappie this week. I hate wet and windy weather, and have been a very unhappy chappie this week, unable to pursue my birding. But it's looking good at the moment this morning and given half a chance....I'm off.

So I picked out at random one of my little black record books to discover quite a decent good afternoons birding I had 15 years ago to the day on 12 December 1999. Apparently it was a day I had decided to check out the birdlife along the promenade at Morecambe including a wander down the Stone Jetty to see a Velvet Scoter. The bird was first picked up flying south towards the jetty soon landing on the sea to give good views to facilitate identification of the bird being a juvenile. Also from here I saw a female Long-tailed Duck, a Red-throated Diver, and 2 Grey Seal making the visit along the jetty a well rewarded one.

Coming off the jetty to what was then called Bubbles Groyne - don't know what it's name is these days if it has one - to find a Purple Sandpiper, and Spotted Redshank there. Further along the promenade from the Town Hall slipway I saw a female Common Scoter to round of the visit nicely....That's what I call 'Apparently A Good Afternoon' at Morecambe.

Continental Crusaders.  

Swallowtail. Marc Heath.

There's an interesting article on the Birdguides website about an influx of exotic continental species into the UK this summer, in which my man from Kent has his excellent image of the Swallowtail butterfly well deservedly published to accompany the article Continental Crusaders  

Common Blue Damselfly. Marc heath. 

Another perfect example of Marc's excellent work is that of the Common Blue Damselfly at sunrise. Thanks for all this Marc, much appreciated.

Disappearing Ducks.

Long-tailed Duck. Dave Appleton.

The record of  a Long-tailed Duck (LTD) off Starr Gate at Blackpool - and one or two other records recently - has prompted me to write up a post about the decline of seven species of sea duck, the numbers of which have fallen by up to 65% over the past 15 years including some that winter off the UK coasts, in particular the LTD and....

 Velvet Scoter. Dave Appleton.

....the Velvet Scoter (VS). 


The mysterious nature and the challenges of monitoring sea ducks have meant that the situation had largely gone unnoticed. Key coastal areas like the Moray Firth in Scotland indicate that VS numbers have declined from an amazing several thousand to a worrying less than 100 in under a decade, and LTD's have plummeted tenfold to another worrying figure of less than 1,000. Similar declines have been reported from the Baltic Sea which appears to suggest that these birds aren't just going elsewhere....they are disappearing.

Eider. Dave Appleton.

More shocking declines have also occurred amongst common and widespread populations such as the Common Eider which has halved in under 20 years. The causes of these declines are unknown, though the widespread nature of them indicates that they are linked to environmental change across much of the arctic and sub-arctic regions where most of these species breed.

Sea ducks occur in remote areas in summer and winter periods, making numbers and habits very hard to assess, attempts to pinpoint the reasons behind these declines are difficult, though suggestions do of course include human activities, like over-fishing of mussels, by-catch in fishing nets, and oil spills are three prime examples.

WWT is to set out a strategy and is asking parties for support in developing international research in tracking migration routes and studies in breeding areas, in particular in Russia. 


Thanks to Dave Appleton for three excellent photographs of three excellent sea duck species.

The Snow Bunting.

Iceland Gull. SP.



A few brief notes with no photographs of the Snow Bunting but to add some interest to the post this image of the juvenile Iceland Gull currently either on Bourbles Pit or Cockers Dyke in the Knott End area is an excellent substitute with my thanks to SP.  

It only takes a glance at the 2009 LDBWS Annual Report to see the Snow Bunting (SB) is a scarce winter visitor to our area with just two birds - both male - seen in that year which actually could very easily have been the same one in both records nearly two months apart.

In Lancashire as a whole the bird is regarded as a 'fairly common winter visitor' with the average number recorded over 22 years to 2005 being 120 annually. However, the SB is a bird prone to wandering during the winter and some duplication is very likely. You have to search back in history to find numbers like the 200 SB's found at the West Lancashire coastal hamlet of Hundred End over 80 years ago in 1929.

The SB visits habitats along the coast in Lancashire and on moorland summits, during a notable influx in 1984 a sighting of 50 birds was recorded on Clougha Fell, this was in the days when I myself totally disregarded this area which - for over more than 12 years - has become one of my most favourite upland birding haunts. As far as the coast is concerned the only place I personally ever found the SB is at Cockersands.

Ringing recoveries in Scotland seem to suggest the majority of wintering SB's are of the Icelandic race insulae but some have the opinion that birds resembling the Siberian race nivalis are also thought to occur. The only ringing recovery was that of a bird found dead in Liverpool in 1990 which had been ringed in Kent in 1988.

I've always had a liking for a gamble but one thing for sure, I'm not having a bet on finding a SB anytime this winter, though thats not to say I won't do.

Three interesting reports I've seen today are those of a Velvet Scoter on the River Lune in Lancaster, 1,000 Brambings in Grange-over-Sands in Cumbria, and even more interesting to me personally, a male Stonechat at Fluke Hall yesterday, thanks for that one BD, much appreciated.

And finally....

Buzzard. Gary Jones
  

More variation in the post with an excellent in flight shot of the Buzzard with my thanks to Gary.