The Wrong Day....Again!

Two birding days in a row being the wrong one. This time the plan was Birk Bank for an update on the state of the dragons there, but hey'up, it was a dreary start to the day, with cloud and low mist over Clougha as I gazed out the bedroom window, which is where Plan A went out of to be switched to Plan B to get an update on the birdlife of Conder Pool.

Little Ringed Plover Conder Pool 30 July. Pete Woodruff.

As I soon found to my great pleasure, this turned out to be an excellent switch of plans, the Little Ringed Plover pair had a trio of chicks surviving to at least 10 days old.

I had only been present at the pool about 10 minutes, when an adult dropped in front of me below the tern platform, then within another few minutes, one, then two, then three chicks....Alleluia!

In the hour I spent at Conder Pool, the three chicks never once came together, but this was the best of days for me at Conder Pool, and after the disasterous year for the LRP's and Avocets, this was an uplifting sight.

Thanks to Howard Stockdale who, with the delightful LRP family, claims a hat trick of recent header images on B2B.

With an update on the terns, I counted 10 Common Tern adult, with seven roosting on an island and two young still on the platform, and in a perfect line for easy counting, at the back of the pool, 17 Greenshank, up to 500 Redshank and 2 Little Grebe. Interesting, that unless they were in hiding, I saw not a single Avocet today.

Conder Pool.

Conder Pool has never failed to come up with at least some surprise for me over the many years I've been visiting this amazing location.

If I picked out just three of these memorable records, I would first choose the White-winged Black Tern which I found quartering the marsh on the Lune Estuary at Glasson 22 years ago on 14 August 2003, when Conder Pool was in its infancy, and where this brilliant bird visited on more than one occasion. The second choice would be the Black-necked Grebe which I found 1 September 2008, and the third would be the Common Scoter seen 27 October 2008.

Fast forward 22 years on, to add to the excellent record of the Little Ringed Plover pair, having made five attempts at breeding on Conder Pool, we have the success of 3 chicks still surviving when I last saw them on Wednesday.  

Common Tern. John Wallace.

And finally, we have the excellent record of a Common Tern bearing a white darvic ring CR3, ringed in Ireland, and if my information from a reliable source is correct, another Common Tern was seen on Conder Pool bearing a green ring, ringed in Germany.

Thanks to Ian Hartley for help with the info re the white ringed Common Tern. Also thanks to John Wallace for the use of his excellent image of the Common Tern.

Conder Pool....What next 😃

Garden Robin 2 August. Pete Woodruff.

The Woodruff family were delighted to see a juvenile Robin arrive in the garden yesterday 2 August. An adult Robin returned to the garden last year on 28 August, and the year before on 18 July 2023.

Conder Pool....A Personal Perspective.

Over the past two years, I've changed direction during the summer months to pay more attention to dragonflies. The change has resulted in my finding what I regard as the best site/s to see good numbers of the Golden-ringed Dragonfly, and the best site to see an expanding colony of Keeled Skimmer.

This change gives the appearance that I've turned my back on Conder Pool, but actually this is not literally true. But what is true, is that I have partially lost contact with a site that has given me endless enjoyment and many rewards over the years, a few examples include a White Winged-Black Tern in August 2003, a Black-necked Grebe 5 years later in August 2008, the following month  I found a Common Scoter in October 2008, and two months later, the first Common Sandpiper to winter here in November 2008, through to a Wood Sandpiper being found 9 years later in August 2017.....So I'm 6 years overdue my next goodie on Conder Pool! 

Conder Pool August 2017

Conder Pool doesn't quite look the same today as it did during management work 6 years ago in 2017.  

My last post highlighted a large new raft which is in place today and held 10 adult Common Tern including 5 sitting female, and 9 chicks. This number of Common Tern, and others not seen in my observations, represents an ever increasing colony of a species that bred in large numbers on the Lune Estuary saltmarshes, until it collapsed in 2008. A combination of factors was the cause of the collapse, natural predation and erosion of the marshes was always going to be a problem, but not least due to human recreational disturbance which was unnatural, unnecessary, and avoidable.

The Common Tern present on Conder Pool today in 2023, represent a mere fraction of this former estuary colony, but the hope is that all this will change over time. There are some credits due to this, funding by Natural England, the RSPB, and the Environment Agency, have all contributed to this project going forward. Credit has also to be paid to volunteers from the Fylde Bird Club who gave their time freely, also to management and staff at Glasson Marina who have been instrumental in making the project work, supplying salvaged marine pontoons, floats and timbers. 

In my opinion, a special thanks should also go to Howard Stockdale, who spends many hours in a week monitoring activity, data collecting for the RSPB, and assisting Ian Hartley (BTO), who does sterling work including ringing the Common Tern and Avocet. 

Little Ringed Plover With 2 Chicks Conder Pool 2 July. Howard Stockdale.

Conder Pool has been a large chunk of my birding over many years, and it's my hope that, through all the funding and labouring by the people involved in this project, Conder Pool is rewarded by a successful return to the former glory of yesteryear regarding a delightful and elegant bird that is the Common Tern.

When I see the recently fledged Common Tern in my header image, I find it exciting and rewarding enough that the colony is slowly being successfully increased to it's former glory by this individual.

Update.

As of yesterday, there is the grand total of 14 Common Tern nests, all active on Conder Pool. The latest I have on the Avocet, 6 are fledged of which 5 are colour marked, 2 more are still to fledge, and 2 are two weeks old.

Bike & Bino's.

Come Friday, it will be 17 years since I found a nice little job on the Lune Estuary on 14 August 2003. It was a bike and bino's day - well there's a novelty - my car being out on hire. I decided to take the ex railway track, now the coastal path from Lancaster - Glasson Dock.

It had got to around 4.00pm when I arrived at the old iron bridge over the River Conder. No sooner had I come to a halt on the bike, when I glimpsed a distant bird over the River Lune at the edge of the salt marsh. Apart from being hampered with views directly into the sun, the bird was already appearing to be intent in doing a disappearing act, it was flying downstream and out of sight. By now the best it got was that I had seen a black Marsh Tern, but things were about to get much worse.

The down side, was that I had to return to Lancaster to keep an appointment, the up side was, after the appointment I could then collect the motor and arm myself with some optics and get myself back to the Lune Estuary and hopefully relocate the bird seen two hours earlier.

                    White-winged Black Tern 14 August 2003. Phillip Tomkinson. 

It was my lucky day, the light was more favourable and the bird was soon found much closer now and hawking for insects over the marsh. I had found two desperate hours ago, a moulting adult White-winged Black Tern.

The bird stayed in the area for 10 days, visiting Conder Pool, where it was seen bathing one day.

Conder Pool.

Avocet Conder Pool 7 August. Howard Stockdale.

It was good news when I heard via Howard Stockdale, the two Avocet had fledged at 36 days and were freely flying around, seen as the second successive breeding at Conder Pool. Thanks for the news and image Howard, much appreciated.

Past Times.

There's a stranglehold on my birding caused by these Covid days, so I made another delve into the archives and found the second of my notes, this one published in the January 2005 issue of British Birds. By coincidence, on the same page in the same issue of the British Birds magazine, there was an article published by the then recorder for Lancashire and North Merseyside until 2000.

The Hunting Strategy Of Eurasian Sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus. 

The note on persistent searching for prey by Eurasian Sparrowhawk in British Birds 96: 653-654, prompts me to recall an individual of this species which I observed at Leighton Moss in Lancashire, on 3 September 2003. The bird came into view in flight over one of the pools and perched out in the open on a dead branch. During the next 15 minutes, I watched this bird fly across the water to the reed edge, at distance of at least 150m in the direction from which it had first come, and without landing, turn and fly back to the same perch. It then repeated the same manoeuvre three more times, always taking the same flight path to the same area of the reed edge, and always turning without landing, to return to its original perch. On each occasion, flight was fast and direct, but noticeably not as rapid as it would have been when chasing prey. On its fifth flight, the hawk disappeared into the reeds at the precise point at which it had turned on the preceding four sorties, and emerged with a small unidentified prey item before flying off.

As far as I could see, this Sparrowhawk appeared to know that prey was hidden in the reeds, and if this was a planned method of hunting, it is one that I have never witnessed before and, on this occasion at least, was a successful one.

Pete Woodruff.

...................................................................

White-winged Black Tern Chlidonias leucopterus. 

A White-winged Black Tern was present on the Lune Estuary, Lancashire, during during 14-24 August 2003. During the birds stay, it regularly fed on butterflies, especially Small Tortoiseshell, which in turn were feeding on Sea Aster on the saltmarsh. Considerable numbers of butterflies were present in the warm sunny weather, and the tern took full advantage of this, I estimated that it caught a butterfly every three minutes.

There is no mention of butterflies in the diet of this species in BWP, and I wondered if the long stay of this White-winged Black Tern was related to this readily available food source.

Maurice Jones.

................................................................

View Over Lake Windermere From Gummers How

F-15C 'Grim Reapers'.

I remember one day a few years ago, climbing to the top of Gummers How in the Lakes, and walking straight into these guys on a training exercise in their flying machines. All round excitement is a bit of an understatement in this video. Watch the man in the first few seconds of the film with No 8 on his shirt getting excited to have achieved the shot of freezing one of 'em....Pump up the volume. 

Another Sunday, Another Twitch.

Following on from the Wryneck twitch at Lytham St Annes on Sunday 13 September, KT and I decided on another twitch and paid a visit to Heysham where we had excellent views of the moulting adult White-winged Black Tern. The bird was watched patrolling the Stage 2 outfall with other gulls where it used endless amounts of energy for in excess of 45 minutes on the lookout and constant dipping for food.....The bird is still at Heysham again today.

Adult Little Gull. Martin Lofgren @ Wild Bird Gallery  

Walking along the seawall, the staying adult Little Gull gave us a flyby towards Red Nab where it went down to join 9 Mediterranean Gull, seen as five adult, and four 2nd winter birds. Out into the bay, a small skein of 35 Pink-footed Geese flew west and low over the sea.

A most enjoyable and rewarding couple of hours birding on a brilliant Sunday afternoon, with thanks to Martin for the winter adult Little Gull image.

With luck I may be able to do some birding again tomorrow.

The Early Bird.

I was the early bird on Friday and at Conder Green by 7.30am - and that's early for me these days - to find the 10 Little Grebe still intact on Conder Pool with c.30 Black-headed Gull for company and little else of note. In the creeks, an adult Spotted Redshank and Greenshank, with a juvenile Ruff in the Conder channel downstream from the iron bridge.

Migrant Hawker Marc Heath 

Three dragonflies were on the Conder upstream from the A588 road bridge, but too far off for any chance of ID, but a male Migrant Hawker was on the coastal path, it settled but my chances of a pic were thwarted by a man who passed me and put the dragonfly to flight just as I was about to press the shutter....Shuks! 

By the time I got to the Lune Estuary the tide had pushed most of the waders to the south side giving me an opportunity to note at least 350 Redshank with just a few Dunlin in view from the bowling green, 2 Spotted Redshank and a Greenshank were on the tideline, but best at mid-distance were 2 Little Stint both juveniles. Eight Little Egret were together, and up to 200 Goldfinch were flighty over the marsh, nothing unusual for the time of year and location for this regular occurrence, but a spectacle all the same. I also had two sightings of Sparrowhawk here.

Little Egret with Oystercatchers. Pete Woodruff.

This was one of 2 Little Egret on Plover Scar at Cockersands at near high tide which was otherwise quiet again for species if not for the count of c.175 Oystercatcher, 70 Redshank, and 8 Turnstone. A 2nd winter Mediterranean Gull showing good strong black wing-tip markings was off the lighthouse cottage, and at least 40 Skylark seen, with a Wheatear by the abbey ruins. A lone Swallow flying south was the only one seen in 8 hours birding today. Off Moss Lane I estimated 180 Curlew in a field by Gardners Farm.    

Sparrowhawk. Pete Woodruff.

I got closer to this Sparrowhawk at Cockersands than any other I've ever seen, I was able to stalk the bird to within a few metres and managed a few shots, the best of which just about shows a half decent result.

White-winged Black Tern. 

White-winged Black Tern Colin Davies  

At 8.52am yesterday morning, I was grateful for a text message telling me of a moulting adult White-winged Black Tern at Heysham, the last I heard was that the bird was still present at 5.30pm. 

Thanks to Marc Heath for the Migrant Hawker, much appreciated. I'm also grateful to Colin Davies for giving me permission to copy his images of the Heysham White-winged Black Tern.

The Anniversary....

....and something a bit more serious.

It wasn't until I got on to the coastal path over the old railway bridge at Conder Green yesterday that I suddenly realised the date was 14 August and it was exactly 10 years ago to the day since the White-winged Black Tern was found quartering the marsh here on 14 August 2003.

White-winged Black Tern ARKive 

The bird was a superb moulting adult which went on to frequent the salt-marsh between Conder Green and Glasson Dock for ten days until last seen on 24 August, it also graced Conder Pool on more than one occasion to add its name to the good selection of excellent records on this brilliant little pool which was in its infancy when this stunner appeared on there. During its stay this bird went on to be observed as being particularly adept at catching butterflies, in the main being Small Tortoiseshell but with other flying insects too.

The White-winged Black Tern breeds in Eastern Europe, eastwards to China, it winters in Africa and in the Far East, through Indonesia to northern Australia. 

But now it gets serious....

Marks and Spencer are launching the sale of whole Red Grouse at two trial stores in London, the first high street retailer to do so. So here the question is....how will Marks and Spencer assure their customers that their Red Grouse have been responsibly sourced from grouse moors that are not poisoning, shooting, and trapping protected species such as the Hen Harrier, Red Kite, Buzzard, Peregrine Falcon, Goshawk, and lots of other wildlife which get in the way of this 'sporting industry'.

You might like to read THIS noting one of the moors the grouse are to be sourced from are the North Yorkshire Moors which happens to be one of the worst hotspots for raptor persecution in the country. You may also like to get in touch with M and S about this issue....I did.

This is serious!

More to the point....very serious. I'm not going to 'get out' again today and staring at this monitor is definitely not good for the mind or soul but that's what I'm doing right now. So to help combat the ill effects all this is having on me I did the following research with my thanks to John Wilson who allowed me access to the LDBWS Annual Reports from the societies birth in 1959....

I did some 'digging' into the archives and as always came up with some interesting results from the 1990 LDBWS Annual Report. I also decided to give Lamberts (Lancaster) Ltd a plug with the front and back cover of the report from 20 years ago.

The year was noted in the report as an interesting one which included a Night Heron, Serin, and singing Marsh Warbler all at Heysham. Other notable records included a mass arrival of 95 Black Terns at Leighton Moss on 2 May which represented the largest number recorded in the area but which was a fraction of the in excess of 1,000 recorded in North-West England as a whole.

There was two attempts of breeding by the same pair of Mediterranean Gulls both of which ended in failure. Other negative news for 1990 was the no breeding success of 'terns' or Bowland raptors the latter which thankfully has now changed for the better  in 2010. Another record which had a particular interest for me was that of a Black Stork which many observers saw soaring over Leighton Moss. Five years later this is a species which I myself had the good fortune to find in flight over Little Fell Lane east of Lancaster on 24 April 1995. More interesting records appeared in this report with up to four Black Grouse recorded on Beatrix Fell, and two pairs near Hollins. This was the year my birding friend JB had the the good fortune of finding a White-winged Black Tern at Leighton Moss and then earned himself some honour in pursuing the bird to Dockacres, and then went on to Heysham to alert fellow birders who were there out of 'telephone' circulation which resulted in a large number of people having cause to be grateful to John for his efforts regarding this sighting and getting the news out. Of course I take particular note that no breeding records of Stonechat were discovered in 1990. It was noted in this report that a Subalpine Warbler found in Freeman's Wood in Lancaster in 1989 had been accepted by BBRC. 

To end, I note my name is absent from this report as of course it will be, a clear indication of my 'late' arrival on the birding scene....How I will always wish I'd have taken an interest in birds many years sooner than I did. 

I'D SOONER BE BIRDING!  

14 August 2003.

If I can be excused the pun, how time flies away....Its seven years to the day since I found a White-winged Black Tern over the marsh on the Lune Estuary at Glasson Dock/Conder Green, the bird eventually adorned the cover of the Fylde Report which had an excellent illustration credited to Tony Disley. This bird stayed in the area for ten days until 24 August, during its stay it was noticeably observed taking butterflies, in particular the Small Tortoiseshell by one observer who contacted me to ask if I had noted this fact.

Some brief notes about the WWBT about which the first record in Britain was at Horsey Mere in Norfolk in May 1853 and the species is now regarded as an annual migrant. It breeds in Eastern Europe and east to China, wintering inland in Africa and in the Far East, from Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia through Indonesia to Northern Australia.

With regard to our area of Lancashire and North Merseyside the first record was of a bird at Crossens Marsh in August 1968 with another one almost to the day a year later at Leighton Moss in August 1969. In total there are nineteen records of the WWBT since the first on in 1968 until the last one five years ago at Seaforth/Crosby Marine Park in September 2005. As far as Conder Green is concerned the 2003 bird had been preceded by one there in July 1973.

THE SWALLOW.

I never did expect to find a Swallow the victim of a road kill so finding one yesterday was a first record I never wanted to collect. The bird was spotted in the roadside at Pilling, I got out of the car to find it was a juvenile - perhaps the explanation for the accident - I noted the bird was still warm and, other than the obvious recent collision the bird was otherwise unmarked/injured. By now my feelings for the birds I have a passion for kicked in and I thought the bird - which had come through the trials of egg to fledging - had been relieved of the hazzards of flying off to South Africa and one of the first major undertakings of its young life, but being killed by a car was too large a price to pay for that.   

Conder Pool.

Little Ringed Plover. Peter Guy.

I don't think there is a bird more appropriate than the Little Ringed Plover for this post about Conder Pool at Conder Green simply because the LRP has graced this excellent pool each and every summer since its creation in 2003, though if my memory serves me correct the area which became the pool was being created in 2002 when material was extracted from here to raise the road a few metres from here as a barrier from the ever rising water levels along our coastline and in this case to protect the caravan site behind the road at this point.

My recently updated header photograph is one I took on 29 March this year and is of a small number of the  c.1,000 waders I was confronted with on this memorable morning when I turned the corner on the A588 at the Stork Hotel to see this amazing sight in the air over Conder Pool. When I walked on to the viewing platform I discovered all the birds had settled down on the various islands and areas of the pool and was quite amazed to count what I wrote in my notes as 'up to 350 Black-tailed Godwit and 450 Knot' the figure of c.1,000 waders was then made up of various species including Greenshank, Spotted Redshank, Redshank and Dunlin etc, and was quite a spectacular sight for such a small pool.

Over the eight years of its existence Conder Pool has been visited by some quite exciting birds creating some equally exciting records, of course the best of these has to be the White-winged Black Tern which I was fortunate to find over the marsh on 14 August 2003, this bird very soon created Conder Pools claim to fame when it visited there at least on one occasion during its stay of ten days on the Lune Estuary. Other 'goodies' void of any dates have been, two Pectoral Sandpipers, a Wood Sandpiper, and another of my finds a juvenile Back-necked Grebe present there when I visited on the morning of 1 September 2008. All these good records are also joined over the years by Little Egret, Avocet, Scaup, and Ruff to name a few.

So, back to the beginning and the Little Ringed Plover which, although it has been present on the pool every year it has often been difficult to confirm breeding successes of which it has had at least three with fledged young observed, but this place has many hidden areas which in some respects is an advantage to the birds and offers them some undisturbed life from the human form at least. The birds have always arrived by early April but there are many of my visits which go without any sightings of either male or female LRP's to such an extent at times that you begin to think they are no longer present, well this is what makes birding what it is and it would be a little boring if every time you went to Conder Pool there was the LRP waiting for you to confirm it is still there.

The creation of Conder Pool and leaving it to nature - and in particular the birds - is the best thing to have happened in our area in recent times, conversely the 'loss' of the old gavel pits of Dockacres to a fishing lake was the crime of the century in my opinion. However, Lancaster and its surrounding areas are by far the best and most diverse of anywhere I know, how many the times I've said 'waders' on the coast, and 'harriers' on the moors forty minutes later....beat that.

Thanks to Peter Guy for the LRP pic, and to John Bateman who often accompanies me on my birding days and who supplied me with some of the records relating to Conder Pool in this post.

Filling the holes!

Crested Lark thanks to Colin Bushell.

There may well be quite a few 'holes' to fill on Birds2blog during the coming day's as some unplanned disruption to my birding kicks in. However, its never really too difficult to find some interesting material to fill the gaps and above is just one example, that of Colin Bushell's latest trip abroad was to Lesvos in April, and the brilliant image of the Crested Lark, and....

       White-winged Terns thanks to Colin Bushell.

....the White-winged Terns are photographic evidence of the success of this trip. You should take a look at Colin's website Ribble to Amazon and keep up to date on this exciting trip he made recently along with many others in the past both abroad and much closer to home....Thanks for the images Colin, and by the way the article below may well interest you.

I note one of my latest unique visitor's to Birds2blog has added the 50th country to do so and is that of Suriname....no I don't know where it is either and if I can be excused my ignorance have never heard of the place, so there now follows a short geography/history lesson and if you don't like the sound of that on a birding blog it's goodbye to you but please come back soon! 

Suriname has an estimated population of 481,267 and is located in Northern South America bordering with the North Atlantic Ocean between French Guiana and Guyana. It was first explored by the Spaniards and then settled by the English in the mid-17th century, Suriname became a Dutch colony in 1667.

With the abolition of slavery in 1863, workers were brought in from India and Java. Independence from the Netherlands was granted in 1975. Five years later the civilian government was replaced by a military regime that soon declare a Socialist Republic which continued to exert control through a succession of nominally civilian admins until 1987 when international pressure forced a democratic election. In 1990 the military overthrew the civilian leadership, but a democratically elected government returned to power a year later in 1991 and has ruled there since.

Learn something every day on Birds2blog!!