Mixed Bag!

Willow Emerald Damselfly. Marc Heath



No appropriate photographs for today's birding, but no better way to start a post than this brilliant little creature stunningly photographed.

And....

Chalk Hill Blue. Marc Heath

If you live in the same area as I do you won't have to hold your breath until you find one of these beauties. Thanks for the images Marc, much appreciated.

My 'mixed bag' for today started at Conder Green where I soon found the palest juvenile Curlew Sandpiper I'm ever likely to see. A phone call to a reliable contact of mine to explain a wader causing me problems had us both deciding what it was, but this individual had the purest white underparts with barely any detectable suffused pale buff on foreneck and breast....got me going for a while! A Little Grebe on Conder Pool is later than those of 2010 on here when I found my first 3 on Tuesday 24 August and actually peaked at 16 on Monday18 October. Nothing else much on the pool save a Common Sandpiper, the two drake Wigeon, and 19 Mute Swans waiting for 'Mr Warburton' to turn up. 

On the Lune Estuary at Glasson Dock an adult Mediterranean Gull, c.220 Golden Plover, and a solitary Black-tailed Godwit before the incoming tide came like a charging horse and combined with - presumably - a raptor putting everything to flight, and a birder asking me if I'd seen the YLG put me to flight too.

At this point - and void of any earlier plans - I decided to 'head for the hills' to pay what will probably be my last 'summer' visit to the Marshaw-Tower Lodge area in Bowland to find at least 5 Spotted Flycatcher having no apparent intention of 'moving out' just yet. Also of note, at least 7 Coal Tit, 7 Goldcrest, 2 Treecreeper, a Nuthatch, Dunnock, Wren, Mistle Thrush, a Dipper was the only bird seen on the stream in three hours, and a Buzzard over, another Buzzard was over Procter Moss Road on my way to Lancaster. 

I make no apology for ending on a 'down note' with the pic below of one of the many kinds of snares/traps I rarely fail to come across on my many visits in a year to the Forest of Bowland....put in place as a killing tool by one of our 'Guardians of the countryside'.