Conder Winterers.

Only a couple of years ago the Greenshank in this photograph at Conder Pool might have been wintering at sites in Africa. The bird is traditionally a long -distance migrant from its sub - arctic breeding grounds, but associated with global warming now appears to have the ability to winter in the Mediterranean region making the birds life much easier with shorter journeys being made.

But Greenshanks like the ones in this pic have been wintering at Conder Green for a 'year or two' now (no accurate records to hand) along with the Spotted Redshank also in the pic, as a result the journeys are even shorter still. In fact the Spotted Redshank was only absent from this location a matter of a few weeks during the summer months last year.

So as mentioned in an earlier post Conder Green is gaining itself quite a good reputation for a good 'birding spot' made all the better by hosting Greenshank, Spotted Redshank, and Common Sandpiper this year to add to the growing list of wintering birds. In fact in my book the Stonechat hasn't wintered here before either, three were seen on 8 January. And by the way if you'd like to see a Kingfisher Conder Green is the best place in the North to see one, I do on average eight visits out of ten......honest!

I've not been able to do any birding since Saturday when I did my bit as a WeBS volunteer the bonus birds of which were 35 Whooper Swans on Pilling Marsh along with a Peregrine Falcon which 'sat' on the marsh the entire time (40 minutes) I was counting thank goodness, also 5 Skylark came down to feed quite close to me. And in a field opposite Sand Villa were 5 Bewick's Swans and a Whooper Swan.

Must get out tomorrow to stave off a serious bout of depression which is taking over me.