BIRDING THE LUNE ESTUARY THE FOREST OF BOWLAND AND BEYOND..............................................................................SCAUP CONDER POOL 5 MARCH PAUL ELLIS

Thursday 12 April 2012

Pipits & Cuckoos.


Water Pipit. Copy Permitted.

Water Pipit. Copy Permitted.

The Water Pipits found on Conder Pool on Sunday 1 April are still being seen there today. The Water Pipit in Britain is known to use the same area for feeding over several weeks, it is also known to frequent the same areas each winter. That said Conder Green has never come into the reckoning before and this is a first record here for the species.

The two Water Pipits in the photographs above are the same two I saw on my 'pipit twitch' on Tuesday 3 April and show the difference in plumage detail which I mentioned at the time with the bottom bird in summer/near summer plumage.


As for the Cuckoos, there is some concern over three of the remaining four of the original five satellite tagged last summer in that there has been no transmission from Lyster since 1 April when he was in Ivory Coast, no news from Martin who was last heard from at Lorca in southern Spain, a poor signal was received from Kasper who is in the uplands of Algeria, and Chris is still in Italy where its assumed he will need to fuel up for several days for the last part of his journey from Italy  to Norfolk. It looks like Chris is going to be the first one 'home'....lets hope the other three follow him safely back.


Recovery Slip 1930.


A lot has been learnt about the Cuckoo since this project was launched, little was know about the birds once they left these shores for Africa prior to this project and the only UK-ringed Cuckoo ever found in Africa was 82 years ago in 1930. 

1 comment:

  1. Not looking good for the Cuckoos Pete :-( Looks like an initial idea as to whats going wrong with this species will be found very soon

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