Oh I do....

.....like to be beside the seaside!

The groynes along the promenade at Morecambe have become popular roosting sites for some of the waders in the bay as my miserable attempt at photographing a few of them today might indicate.

I decided it would be a good idea to check out the promenade again today either side of the tide starting at Teal Bay where I could only find 2 Scaup female from the previously recorded six of late, also to note here were 12 Pintail and just 3 Bar-tailed Godwit amongst the Oystercatcher throng with unimpressive numbers of Dunlin, Redshank, and Curlew. Some kind soul keeps putting up fat balls here and 3 Long-tailed Tits and a Dunnock were showing interest whilst I was here today.

Off Broadway an adult Mediterranean Gull, at least 20 Goldeneye also off here was exceptional by recent standards. Other birds noted along the way to the Stone Jetty, 38 Eider, 3 Red-breasted Merganser, and at least 13 Great-crested Grebe, on the jetty groyne 15 Turnstone were of note.

It turned out to be a pleasant birding morning at Morecambe with some decent sunshine though a pretty unfriendly wind which is forecast to become even more strong and unfriendly with heavy rain thrown in for good measure.

On arriving back at the motor I felt a strange magnetic feeling come over me and twenty minutes later found myself at Conder Green where I found a Greenshank, Spotted Redshank, Common Sandpiper, 3 Grey Plover, and 4 Little Grebe. Conder Pool was quiet but 4 Goldeneye have taken up there.

And there ended my contribution to the recording of the birds of Morecambe Bay - well a mere fraction of it anyway - and Conder Green.

And finally....

Kestrel. Peter Fletcher.

I was more than a little impressed when I saw this photograph of the Kestrel by moonlight. Many thanks for letting me have this for Birds2blog, it is much appreciated Peter.

    

Uneventful....

....or eventful dependant on your viewpoint.

I drove down to Pilling this morning thinking....if six 'geese' species/races are going to be in the same field again as they were yesterday then PW may as well be in on the action, but they weren't and I left Fluke Hall prematurely not least because there was too many cars/dogs and bird-chasers around for my liking, not a goose in sight, and....this is not 'My Kind of Birding'. I called in at Pilling Marsh, returned via Cockerham Moss and arrived at Cockersands an hour and a half after leaving home without a bird entering my notes.

I pulled up outside Crook Cottage and counted 155 Black-tailed Godwit and at least 420 Dunlin noting them in the book before someone arrived on the scene to tell me he'd seen the Snow Bunting on the shingle below Cockersands Abbey swiftly producing a pic of the bird on his camera display....'may as well go and see this scarcity' and thanks very much for the info.

I spent the next 2.5 hours between the Abbey and the Caravan Park - including venturing out on to Plover Scar - to no avail. I'm going to cut this story short now as it's beginning to hurt and gives me a rough idea - though I don't know the reality of it - of what it's like to drive at 120 mph all the way to Devon from Inverness to find the 'mega' has done a bunk! And here's something else which did my head in....a guy had ventured way out onto the beach at Cockersands with 15 dogs of mixed breed - yes 15 - and put to flight a few thousand wildfowl/waders. I reckon 'pillock' is about as polite a description that I can come up with to avoid calling him what I really thought he was. I called in at Glasson Dock to find the estuary almost deserted again save 15 Black-tailed Godwit feeding quite close.

So thats it....next year I'm going to buy a season ticket to support a football team fighting to gain some recognition in the game and help pay the expenses for Manchester United. This birding lark - excuse the pun - is a waste of time and it's taken me all this time to find out.

Short-eared Owl. David Cookson

This SEO has already made an appearance on Birds2blog but it's the very bird I found on 21 January in the Out Rawcliffe area and which DC photographed on the same day unknown to me....Thanks for this David, excellent is the word.  



Every Little Helps!

Tufted Duck. Phil Slade

Managed the Monday four hour - every little helps - slot today and started at Cockersands where the female Stonechat was feeding merrily at the Caravan Park end. At the set-aside the number of 'finches' has increased once again and reached up to 120 Linnet today, off Crook Cottage at least 180 Black-tailed Godwit, 3 Bar-tailed Godwit, c.130 Dunlin and solitary Grey Plover. A Red-breasted Merganser and 6 Eider were off Plover Scar. On Jeremy Lane the immature Whooper Swan was in a field with 52 Mute Swans.

The Lune Estuary at Glasson Dock was remarkably quiet but as proof I checked it out I noted c.120 Dunlin and 200 Wigeon, a drake Goosander, 2 Goldeneye, and a Little Grebe. On the canal basin I noted 9 Goldeneye, 2 Pochard drakes, and a Little Grebe. I did'nt count the Tufted Duck on here today but PS took the excellent photograph above of them recently and you can see many more good pics like this one plus some ringing and birding notes HERE

At Conder Green the Common Sandpiper showed me that you really need to look for this bird, today it was in the channel by the right hand bend at the Caravan Park, 2 Spotted Redshank, a Greenshank, and Little Grebe were all in the creeks, the only bird of note on the pool was a Goldeneye, and the only one of note on a circuit walk was a smart male Reed Bunting beginning to look like it was spring.

From a good source today I learn about a dead Barn Owl at Cockersands recently - whatever recently meant, I forgot to question - taken for analysis apparently. Yesterday I found c.55 Redwing in trees by fields called Quay Meadows - well I think it is - behind St Geores Quay in Lancaster, can't recall my last 'good flock' of this species and not a regular event in any number in my records.

And finally....

Red-necked Grebe. Brian Rafferty

Another of BR's 'pics with a difference' and the bird is one with a difference too in that it is heading towards the longest staying Red-necked Grebe in the area with only a few of them ever having stayed more than two weeks though one inland bird holds the record of just over 11 weeks in 1988.

Always on the learn!



I'm always up for learning, have a lot of it to do, and certainly found a new word when I noted a very interesting one attached to the image below of  Beech leaves in winter. I reckon some of you may also be about to learn something here too. Thanks for this Linda....interesting and taught me something new. 

Beech Leaves. Kirkstall Creatures Great and Small

The foliage on this Beech tree is characteristic of a tree which retains its leaves during the winter period and which fall from the branch only when new growth comes in the spring. Oak and Chestnut trees are two other examples which present this state, though climatic conditions such as frost and wind can change this when leaves may drop in winter. And the description of this condition of winter leaves on trees is....Marcescence.

OK hold your hand up if you didn't already know that and don't be so macho! 

Stonechat. John Bateman.

An excellent pic of our nice little winter friend at Cockersands seen by JB again last Friday and remaining here as one of a very few to be currently found anywhere in our area and far beyond. Thanks for this John....Crested Stonechat Eh!

Whooper Swan. Brian Rafferty

A Whooper Swan pic with a difference. This is what I like BR, pics with a difference with many thanks.

I hope to do a 'little' birding tomorrow with luck.

Persecution is the word.

Snow Bunting. Copyright Granted.



But first an excellent photograph of the Snow Bunting which put in appearance at Cockersands on Thursday - whilst I was flogging 'a dead horse' on the Bowland uplands - I was forwarded a few pics of the bird for which I am truly grateful.

Having spent five hours on Thursday in the glorious - not strictly speaking on this particular occasion - Forest of Bowland, I was as always on visits to this outstanding area of natural beauty, inclined to have the magnificent Hen Harrier (HH)  in the back of my mind. If you find yourself in an elevated position in the Forest of Bowland overlooking a panoramic view you get the true value of how vast this place really is, a place which has enough habitat to hold 300 pairs of this truly wonderful bird, yet in 2010 only 12 pairs of HH bred in England in its entirety seven of which were successful and five of which were on the United Utilities Estate which remains Englands only stronghold for this bird. There are some graphic illustrations to be found which clearly point to this bird of prey with its small population slipping into extinction for the second time, historically the HH was persecuted to extinction across mainland Britain having been a bird formerly widespread in the UK, but its range was restricted through persecution to Orkney and the Outer Hebrides by 1900.

Thursdays sight of at least 12 uniform vehicles in make/model/and colour driving past me in the Trough of Bowland - reasonably obvious returning from a shoot - helped bring home to me just how 'big and powerful' the 'Shooting Industry' really is, the persecution of the HH is linked to land management for driven-grouse shooting and is unquestionably the main reason for the 'missing pairs'. It has to be said, even though birds of prey are now fully protected by law, persecution remains worryingly common and enforcement of these laws protecting our birds of prey are clearly not working.

Scotland appears to currently have a good environment minister who has made moves to hold to account - by fines or imprisonment - those landowners who manage staff who are convicted of killing birds of prey in Scotland. Now that the future of the HH in England hangs in the balance once again, all necessary measures need to be considered to prevent this bird being lost to persecution for ever.

Perhaps our Environment Minister should now follow the suit of Scotland on this one....I'll drop a line off in the post tomorrow!

Are you interested in moths....micro moths? Then you may be interested in THIS   

This won't take long!

The result of today's exercise - which won't take long to record here - was a forgone conclusion really but I needed the evidence and gave five hours on Harrisend and Hawthornthwaite on the west and east sides to find not a solitary Stonechat. When I got out of the car at Harrisend this morning I had thought I wouldn't need my notebook today....something of an understatement. The uplands of Bowland can be desolate places in winter and I was alone on Harrisend for two hours save 17 Red Grouse and a few 'corvids'.

On the west side of Hawthornthwaite Fell there was at least 300 of the animals in the pic above, and probably another 300 I didn't see, something I'm hoping isn't the case when I go up there come the spring. I noted 12 Red Grouse up here but also got the bonus of 2 Ravens overhead. This wasn't looking good as I'd been on my pins about three hours now and had 'collected' little.

There's little to say about the east side of Hawthornthwaite except it took me almost two hours to find another 12 Red Grouse with another bonus in a Buzzard.

Common Sandpiper. Phil Slade

Conder Green is maintaining it's place on the list as one of the best in the area for some birding and PS saw and photographed the wintering Common Sandpiper which has survived the harsh weather we had recently despite the banks of the River Conder being white with frost for days on end, no doubt it made a few visits to the River Lune in the hunt for food.

Spotted Redshank. Phil Slade

Three Spotted Redshank were also found by PS on his visit yesterday. The Spotted Redshank is a virtual resident now at Conder Green with the exception of a few weeks in the breeding season and you can witness annually the unique transformation of this birds plumage from what you see in the pic above to it's summer coat of black.

Cockersands also lived up to its reputation again today as a 'good birding location' and one of the most reliable in the area for Snow Bunting when one was found here this morning.

Amidst all of today's negativity and a five hour/six mile slog for little reward - but it has to be done and I'm the man to do it - I managed to maintain an essential sense of humour and took a pic of the 'Nice pair of legs' on Harrisend! 

Forests, Chats....

Snowdrops. Warren Baker

....and some Snowdrops seen yesterday in Kent. Although not opened in this photograph they've beaten any up here in't north as far as I'm aware. Thanks for these Warren a lovely sign that spring is just around the corner.

There are some opinions that the 'fuss' over the government sell off of our forests etc has no substance, but I reckon we should take it all very serious and sign the petition and maybe get involved with protests until this disbelief by some is proved. If you haven't already done so, please take a look at this which brings the whole thing much closer to home Save The Lakeland Forests. 

I was looking through my end of the year notes today and thought I'd transfer a summary of the ones on the Stonechat onto Birds2blog....

Stonechat. Colin Bushell



It doesn't really seem all that long ago that I could find the Stonechat at every location I visited during the year including the winter months, but thats all come to an end now, with two successive harsh winter periods the Stonechat population has taken a battering and I'd suggest causing considerable mortality, in particular with the recent one we just experienced.

Within the UK a majority remain to winter, residing on or near to their breeding territory or making longer movements within the UK. A smaller number migrate to S.Europe and the coastal countries of N.Africa. During milder winters - which we have experienced over something like the 12 years since I took on a keen interest in this smart little 'chat' - the population which stays to winter here has the advantage over the migratory part of the population in that it can commence breeding at an earlier date and make multiple breeding attempts.

Prior to these two harsh consecutive winter periods I would have agreed the speculation that the generally accepted global warming of the climate would allow the sedentary population of the species to increase to such a degree that in the future the European Stonechat would have become entirely resident within the UK. From my experience of observations over a period of more than twelve years at many locations in the North of England, the status of the Stonechat has now been set back to pre 1999 when the bird was something of a scarcity, the possibilities of it becoming entirely resident are as far away as ever now and certainly as far away as the years between 1986-1998 when the breeding population in Bowland reached the dizzy heights of 2 pairs from none between these 12 years.  

I'D SOONER BE BIRDING!....hopefully on Thursday when I hope to convince myself that the Stonechat really doesn't exist in January at three upland locations I'd like to check out, the greater hope of course is that I'm completely wrong about that.  

The Med Has It!

Conder Green. Peter Guy.

By way of a change no pics of birds, but a brilliant photograph of Conder Green on a misty Thursday 20 January morning last week  for which I'm truly grateful to PG.

Well, the smart adult Mediterranean Gull on the Lune Estuary at Glasson Dock gets the 'Bird of the day' award from me on my Mondays four hours against the clock birding - I hate running to a timetable - closely followed by the Spotted Redshank at Conder Green where I also noted 2 Grey Plover, 2 Little Grebe, 15 Wigeon on the marsh here, and a hunting Kestrel. Two Goldeneye were the only notables on Conder Pool. The Lune Estuary also produced 26 Goldeneye with a reduced figure of late c.250 Golden Plover, and a mix of distant c.30 Black/Bar-tailed Godwit. On the canal basin I noted 7 Goldeneye and a drake Pochard.

Off Bodie Hill on Glasson Marsh, c.55 Black-tailed Godwit and 665 Wigeon to note. From Moss Lane c.2,500 Pink-footed Geese. At Cockersands where - running out of time - I paid a token visit and noted 25 Linnet at the set-aside, c.450 Oystercatchers were the guardians of the rapidly submerging Plover Scar underneath an almost 10m tide, with 2 Grey Plover, c.40 Dunlin, and 2 Eider drake by the lighthouse....Come in PW you're time's up! 

 River Hodder at Burholme. Peter Guy.

Well the East Lanc's birders will be more acquainted with this photograph of the River Hodder at Burholme than the North Lanc's birders, with thanks once more to PG.

And finally....I note the Shorelark found at/near the Carnforth slag tips on Saturday has been showing again today and has created some interest it being a rare bird for these parts. I did an article on the species 'The Shorelark' on 28 December which concluded with, 'It strikes me I should be taking a look in on the slag tips at Carnforth....we may be missing some Shorelark records in our area', well I did'nt....'take a look in'.

The Brent Goose.

Dark-bellied Brent Goose. Courtesy of Stephen Foster.

On Tuesday I found two Dark-bellied Brent Geese Branta bernicla bernicla  (DBBG/BG), the first one at Knott End and another on Pilling Marsh later in the day. The Knott End bird surprised me for two reasons, firstly this bird was roosting on the beach at Knott End with Shelduck which I found rather odd if only because, like all other scarcer species of geese the BG are often to be found with Pink-footed Geese - as the Pilling Marsh bird was - though the least tied to them because of their more coastal distribution, and secondly, I hadn't realised the BG was actually smaller than the Shelduck....learning something new every day! 

The DBBG breeds on the Arctic coasts of central and western of Siberia, it is a long distance migrant with arguably the most energetically costly migrations of any other waterfowl species. The largest flock ever recorded in Lancashire was of up to 300 birds at Hundred End on the S.Ribble Marshes in late January 1929 with nothing remotely comparable to this record since. This remarkable record can be found in the notes of Clifford Oakes, and there appears to be no real indication that the status of the BG in Lancashire has changed much since the days of Oakes whose assessment of it was that of a 'sporadic visitor', an average of around 25 birds have been seen each winter since 1978/79 though this figure includes several sizable influxes the largest of which came in the winter of 1978/79 when 40 birds were recorded half of which were Pale-bellied Brent Geese Branta bernicla hrota, whereas the influx of 1990/91 involved 50 birds most of which were DBBG.

There is just one record of Black Brant Branta bernicla nigricans found in Lancashire, that of a bird on Pilling Marsh in mid December 1996, it stayed there until at least late February 1997.

And finally....

Brambling. Brian Rafferty

An excellent photograph of the smart Brambling to end the post with a splash of colour....Thanks for this Brian, much appreciated. 

In and out of the soup!

Eagland Hill. Pete Woodruff.

For the first three hours we were in and out of banks of fog some of which came close to 'pea soup' thick and much worse than my pic shows, but it eventually cleared and made into a pleasant if cold day.

With JB/BT we first called in at Conder Green where we didn't move from the lay-by at the pool from where I noted 8 Little Grebe in the creeks, and 6 Wigeon on Conder Pool before we were off to Knott End where the tide was well in and was about to push the birds off the beach, but I noted c.20 Sanderling and 2 Wigeon on the sea which I thought quite unusual here, up to 50 Twite also off the esplanade.

In and around the Eagland Hill area we saw 2 Buzzard. On New Lane I saw at least one Reed Bunting, and a Brambling was with a flock of c.60 Chaffinch. On Bradshaw Lane a solitary Corn Bunting and 2 Stock Dove noted. On Taylors Lane, c.2,500 Pink-footed Geese (PFG). From Fluke Hall I watched 68 Whooper Swans (WS) come off Pilling Marsh flying south, and noted 42 Bar-tailed Godwit on the beach.

On Pilling Marsh I counted another 11 WS and a 'large' number of distant and many hidden PFG, and again saw the Peregrine Falcon perched on the same post as Tuesday. From Gulf Lane another c.20 WS distant inland and in the air, another c.2,500 PFG, a Buzzard, and a Little Egret fishing in a ditch.

I have no idea why, but we then went to Cockersands to spend three minutes at the lighthouse, followed by another three at the Caravan Park end, though the latter location gave us excellent views of the Barn Owl, we saw the Black Swan from Moss Lane which appears to have lost the company of the immature Whooper Swan which I've seen with it on two previous sightings recently.

Sparrowhawk. David Cookson

I have good reason to post the above brilliant image of the male Sparrowhawk....Thanks David. 

I was busy at the time but couldn't help overhearing a conversation on the radio this morning with a so called 'pigeon fancier' who was calling for 'getting rid of Sparrowhawks', this guy I understood to make two claims, firstly the birds are deemed by him as a 'pest' because of their habit of taking out Pigeons, and secondly he claims a policy is in place in Scotland whereby eggs are 'legally' removed from any nests found with the view that control is the way forward here....I think someone needs to have a word in this mans ear, if I knew who he was I would be more than willing to do that.