BIRDING THE LUNE ESTUARY THE FOREST OF BOWLAND AND BEYOND.................................................................................BRENT GEESE HEYSHAM PETE WOODRUFF

Thursday, 11 December 2008

Drawn again....

....to the patch. I just cannot live without
it....these are the highlights.

At Conder Green, the pool is slowly freezing over and the Kingfisher was the only bird to light up the place today. By the old iron bridge a similar number of recently seen c.40 Fieldfare and a 'few' Redwing.

On the nearly frozen Glasson Basin 6 drake and a female Pochard were to note, also a drake Goosander and a Goldeneye.

On the River Lune the female Scaup was displaced from the basin along with the Tufted Ducks, a Little Egret, three Little Grebe were also noted. A Peregrine Falcon was on Colloway Marsh.

On Glasson Marsh, another Little Egret, c.90 Bar-tailed Godwit, and a Peregrine Falcon could have been the Colloway Marsh bird.

At Cockersands, 22 Black-tailed Godwit were in fields here, only 5 Tree Sparrows seen today, 14 Linnet, a Little Egret was in inland fields, and the 1st winter male Stonechat seen again. Five Brown Hare were in the same field together.

At Bank End, up to 55 Twite seen were followed by a call to PJM to say none appeared to be ringed. I regreted this call as these birds have been checked out with the result about 50% are in fact ringed apparently with metal rings I understand. So my excuse is that I was looking for 'colours' in poor light. However, at the end of the day I think it's called 'jumping in with both feet'......some people never learn.

I called back at Glasson Dock on the way home and got the picture of three birds on their way to the moon but not knowing they had flown past it!
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10 comments:

  1. Hi Pete - super pic. Do you record your hare sightings at http://www.brownhare.org.uk/

    Keep up the blog nice to know what's just up the road at a place I very rarely get to.

    Dave

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  2. No, don't record the Brown Hare here but will do so now.

    Thanks for comments Dave.

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  3. Please could you remove any reference to myself re-what should have been a private conversation on Twite. I dont think this should have been published as a matter of principle. Thanks. This is the problem with personal diaries constituting a blog - highly readable - but what aspects of your day should remain private, particularly if it involved other people without asking if their comments/actions could be 'named' in the public domain? This is why I am REALLY careful & ask before attributing records I hear about to named individuals when I put them on the LDBWS site.

    Cheers Pete

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  4. This blog was NEVER set up to be controversial Mr Marsh and rest assured I won't be letting you ruin that decision. This post from you is simply nonsense as my reference to you meant little if anything and causes you no problems whatsoever as we are talking about birds with/without rings. I think you may well need to bear in mind, not for the first time you sent me an e-mail recently with about four other peoples address's attached. Presumably this is the kind of privacy you refer to here! I think you are in need of a holiday PJM.

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  5. I repeat - the phone call was private (from you to me) and the contents should not have been mentioned in the public domain. The most important aspect of it was mentioning that another well-respected birder had noted the expected minimum of 50% being Heysham-ringed. I wonder if the flock you saw contained significant numbers of Linnet - they an be hard to sort out if you only get very brief views - hence "Twinnet" used on the Heysham site for mobile Ocean Edge saltmarsh birds. There will be another update on the North lancs Ringing Group site in the near future, including Heysham and Duddon-ringed birds as far south as in the Birkdale/Formby flock.

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  6. Pete Woodruff
    I hope you will ignore PJM's ridiculous and, as ever over- the -top comments.As usual there is no sense of perspective or logic.
    Keep up your excellent work and let's just hope he does not try to dominate and overwhelm your blog.
    It would be more than a shame.
    Martin

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  7. Many thanks for your contribution here Martin.

    Two things....1) I have no intention of responding here or LDBWS website (were there is another post on the same subject) ever again on this matter. Something worth remembering on this blog is that I now have total command of the 'scissors' which I'm about to use if this doesn't stop. 2) Pity you chose not to post you full name Martin, as a consequence I don't know who my supporters are.

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  8. Please get in touch, Martin, and explain why a completely inaccurate remark from a private phone call concerning Twite is perfectly acceptable in the public domain? Only one bird in North Lancs out of at least 142 individuals observed/ringed this autumn (probably at least 70% of the wintering population) has been metal-only ringed. Or maybe I have it totally wrong and this is just an entertaining, chatty site (which it genuinly is) where being slightly economical with the truth is irrelevant.

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  9. Pete Woodruff
    I am glad you have some control over your blog.You may need to be doing some cutting I suspect.
    We have met many moons ago.I used to see you at Leighton Moss in the sea hides occasionally.I used to enjoy meeting you there.
    I enjoy your blog
    Keep on blogging and birding!
    Martin

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  10. Thanks yet again Martin. You will see my ability for restraint is not to be exceeded by anyone and this blog will remain as non-controversial as possible.

    ReplyDelete