An even closer look.

There's an excellent 'Closer Look' Gallery which has recently been brought up to date on the Flyde Bird Club website and the American Golden Plover, Blue-headed Wagtail, Temminck's Stint, Kentish Plover, and White Stork are all examples of what you will find HERE 

Blue-headed Wagtail.

One of the birds featured on the Fylde Bird Club website is the Blue-headed Wagtail (BHW) and I've been taking a closer look for myself at this bird.

The fact that continental Yellow Wagtails differed from the British form escaped the attentions of ornithologists until the early 1830's when the distinction was eventually noted, and in 1834 at Colchester in Essex the first British record of a continental BHW was made. This form of the continental race is the most common one to reach Britain, and breeding with the British flavissima is today recorded almost annually.

American Golden Plover.

The first record of an American Golden Plover (AGP) - a North American vagrant - in the Lancashire and North Merseyside area was of a bird with Golden Plovers at Marshside in November 1984, four years later another was found at Fleetwood in September 1988.

The next record of an AGP in Lancashire became famous for both me and for the county, in my case it was the bird I 'twitched' with my old friend and mentor the late John Leedal, and for the county it became the first long staying AGP for Lancashire. This bird was found at Fishmoor Reservoir, Blackburn on 28 October 1995, and was last seen on 11 November which was the date JL and I went to see the bird and therefore we were amongst the last birders to see this individual. Having looked up my record of the bird I found I'd made the following note....

'After a three hour wait to see if the grim weather we had traveled to Blackburn in would clear up - which it didn't - and following a further period searching for the bird in rain we discovered it with the c.200 Golden Plovers it had been in the company of for almost two weeks now, we eventually had excellent views of the AGP, also of note here was a female Common Scoter'. The note ends....'A Good Day'.

Yellow Wagtail. Simon Hawtin

The Yellow Wagtail to be found in our area of North Lancashire is that of a scarce and declining migrant breeder of probably no more than 'one or two' pairs. The most reliable site I know of for seeing this species is/was the Halforth/Heversham Moss area where I've neither heard nor seen the place mentioned this year, though I have to confess to not having been there to see for myself.  

For the record....I have been given permission to post the photographs of the BHW/AGP.