The Short List.

Whooper Swans. John Bateman.

Thanks to JB for the pic of the first Whooper Swans of 2010 in our area, found in stubble off Fluke Hall Lane last Tuesday 12 October eleven days later than last years three opposite Braides. A good days birding  with some good records collected for my book.

I have a feeling the title has been used on a previous post but we won't concern ourselves on that one, but it is a short list for the Monday four hour slot which started at Conder Green where 16 Little Grebe were counted on Conder Pool which at this rate will have to be renamed Grebe Pool, also of note on an otherwise quiet pool was 3 Black-tailed Godwit. The negatives here were no sign of the Common Sandpiper, or the four summering Wigeon which have perhaps now joined the relations on the Lune Estuary. In the creeks 3 Spotted Redshank, 3 Greenshank, and 8 Snipe.

On the Lune Estuary from Glasson Dock in excess of 1,000 Knot and 700 Bar-tailed Godwit were of note. At Cockersands a Ruff was in a field opposite the Lighthouse Cottage with c.85 Curlew, and there are now up to 50 Greenfinch in the area of the winter seed section of the same field, 9 Linnet also around this area, and the brief 'flash' of a small raptor was almost certainly a Merlin, 'almost certainly' being my way of claiming a 'possible'. And that was it....The Short List.

I was dead set on giving Cockersands a good going over for a couple of hours today, but a pick-up van and some men parked way out at the seaward end of Plover Scar, plus a pretty strong wind making the optics on a tripod behave like they were having a nervous breakdown all contributed to rhymes with 'missed' me off completely. These people do have the right to be out there on the scar with a van I assume, but what the bloody hell are they doing out there anyway....The rant ends here!

And finally....

Red Deer. Gary Jones.

Thanks to Gary for the pic of the stag Red Deer locked in combat on his recent trip to do A Circuit of Martindale where you can see some excellent photographs - both landscape and deer - of his day in this brilliant area of the Lake District.