BIRDING THE LUNE ESTUARY THE FOREST OF BOWLAND AND BEYOND...............................................................RED GROUSE HAWTHORNTHWAITE PETE WOODRUFF

Friday, 12 November 2010

Back in the Trough!

But first....

Great Northern Diver. Brian Rafferty.

The GND was found on the Marine Lake at Fleetwood on last Sunday 7 November and still remains there today. There are three 'bits' of good news about this bird, firstly BR has been to see it, secondly he photographed it, and thirdly I have access to his photographs. So the plug is....Please visit his website HERE for more of the same.

Well BT's car - with JB and I inside it - didn't shoot off to Aldcliffe today, instead we started with a failed 'twitch' - oh dear - to see some Waxwings which were no longer in Booths car park in Lancaster, followed by what turned out to be a quite enjoyable days birding in the Trough of Bowland.

We first halted at Blea Tarn reservoir where I noted 2 Little Grebe, as with the rest of the day JB's records will show that we actually saw much more than these two little beauties on here. A call in at the car park on Rigg Lane produced a Raven over and a Mistle Thrush to note. At Abbeystead 2 Coal Tit, and 2 Dipper on the River Wyre with one just downstream from Stoops Bridge, and the other upstream, from the road away from here, 2 Buzzard and c.2,500 Starling turning a large portion of the field they were in black.

Between Marshaw and Tower Lodge, yesterdays 80 Brambling were eventually accounted for, but today they were even more mobile and fragmented into three flocks between these two points, up to 50 Wood Pigeon also appeared to be feeding on beechmast here, and a Treecreeper noted. At Langden, as we arrived 2 Raven overhead and a Kestrel. The short walk to the pump house produced not a single bird but of note was the serious erosion which has taken place since I was last here, at one point towards the small pump house little now remains of the track.

Fieldfare seen on the day probably numbered 400 with my 'at least' figures being, 50 on Long Lane, 200 on Rigg Lane with a 'few' Redwing with them, and 120 in the Cam Brow area.


In an e-mail from the WWF I was told of just eight days to go before the summit in St Petersburg to 'Save The Tiger'. The WWF have already had their target of 100,000 signatures smashed and are now hoping to collect a massive 150,000 to which we can contribute, so please will you Sign The Petition

3 comments:

  1. Pete. Thanks for yet another plug !!!

    Pleased you and " the lads " had an excellent day's birding. I am sure you will soon catch up with waxwings.You did well finding a good no of bramblings on your Bowland patch and they too should hopefully hang around.

    Take care and looks like we might have some better weather for next week's birding.

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  2. 80 Brambling Pete ! would love one to visit me, preferrably on my garden feeders :-)

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  3. The Brambling in the Trough are excellent with only about seven reports in the entire county last time I checked and these of single birds only. The 'plug's' my pleasure Brian.

    Waxwing moving in down south now Warren....in Somerset today.

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