Goldeneye. Brian Rafferty
Monday means four hours birding for me at the moment, well more than a moment as it may take a while for me to get the situation changed by negotiation. So I was at Conder Green this morning where I eventually found 2 Spotted Redshank and 2 Greenshank, followed by a singing male Reed Bunting, 42 Wigeon in the channel below the railway bridge, with another six Wigeon on Conder Pool where a Little Grebe was to note, also 3 Goldeneye and 45 Common Gull. At Glasson Dock on the canal basin I noted 2 Pochard drakes, 3 Goldeneye, 34 Tufted Duck, and a Great-crested Grebe.
On the Lune Estuary the most notable thing here was the miserable count of 55 Wigeon, surely a minimum count of mega proportions in winter at this location, also of note were reasonable estimates of 650 Bar-tailed Godwit, 280 Golden Plover, 130 Dunlin, and 4 Goosander. On Colloway Marsh at least 2,000 Pink-footed Geese were distant. On Jeremy Lane, 3 Whooper Swans were an adult and two immature, and the Little Owl on view again.
The visit to Cockersands was almost a non-event but I had to note one of the locations traditional few wintering Grey Plovers, a Dunnock got into my records here, and I could count only 19 Linnet on what I now understand to be a small section of the field under the Higher Level Stewardship Scheme which obviously serves the same purpose as the - mistakenly named by me - set-aside. If you haven't already done so you may be interested in what a contributor to Birdsblog has said in a comment on my post 'Set-aside'. Although I hadn't set out to do a count today I found 14 Brown Hares in the Cockersands area without any difficulty.
And Finally....
It had to be yet another of those 'BR pics with a difference' showing the drake Teal on a virtual vertical take off, and at the top of the post a pair of Goldeneye engaged in display. Thanks for the two pics Brian....both helping Birds2blog to look more interesting.
Nice photos!
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome to visit my blog as well, and if you like what you see, please feel free to become a follower.
I read the Fleetwood birders comments on setaside, and its true what he has written. Well almost!
ReplyDeleteMany of the farmers around my area are driven by profit, the bigger the better. They will rip out every hedgrow, and plough in every last piece of grassland, just to get that little bit more from the land. Give them a better profit by paying them not to farm and they will bite yer hand off :-).
When I asked one local farmer 'could he leave a field margin' he asked me If I would pay for the lost production !