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

Monday, 28 March 2011

Quiet but....


At least five birds reminded me it was spring and included one which was something of a surprise. But it's the calm before the storm of migrant birds flooding in and by the way, if you were anywhere near me this afternoon and thought it was a lovely spring like day, well you should have been at....


Cockersands, where this was the kind of scene....



....and this too. The place was cursed with fog for the entire two hours I spent there in the hope it would burn off but didn't and just kept rolling in off the sea.

At Conder Green where it really was like spring - though we wait some more before the birds arrive - 2 Spotted Redshank and a Greenshank were in the creeks, the Common Sandpiper was on Conder Pool but I had to search from the west end to find it. The Lune Estuary from Glasson Dock was almost a void and empty space, though to contradict that I had just estimated 370 Bar-tailed Godwits when a bird seen flying across the river from one side to the other was instantly not a Shelduck, and if it's a bird in flight which looks like a Shelduck but isn't one, then it's an Avocet which promptly put itself down in the midst of the BTG's I'd just counted, I also noted c.50 Dunlin. On Jeremy Lane 3 Whooper Swans still - an adult and two immatures - but for how much longer.

Golden Plover. John Bateman.

At Cockersands during one or two periods of  thinning fog I found c.600 Golden Plover in the Abbey Farm field, a reduction in number of at least 400 from last Fridays count of in excess of 1,000 birds. Also of note, 4 Wheatear, 13 Eider, a single Grey Plover, and 22 Linnet, a Skylark sang it's constant flight song despite the murk. Thanks for the pic here John - a mere fraction of Fridays 1,000+ - with about two dozen of them coming in to land. 

Talking of Avocet....


Probably the best lager  in the world Avocet photograph with perfect symmetry I've ever seen. Thanks for the pics JB/DC, I know it's an old and much played record on Birds2blog but....much appreciated.

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