BIRDING THE LUNE ESTUARY THE FOREST OF BOWLAND AND BEYOND.................................................................................BRENT GEESE HEYSHAM PETE WOODRUFF

Wednesday, 6 March 2013

A Little Birding....

....goes a long way. 

Well, I got out to do more than a little birding on Monday and got an hour or two in on Tuesday too, but have had little time since then to devote to the blogosphere. So here are the results for Monday....

At Conder Green the resident 'specials' which put in an appearance were, 2 Spotted Redshank, a Greenshank, 4 Little Grebe, and 2 Little Egret, one on Conder Pool, the other in the channel below the railway bridge. On the Lune Estuary I counted only 155 Black-tailed Godwit - a reduction of at least 500 seen of late - accompanied by a Ruff, 65 Goldeneye was the best count I could come up with, also 3 Little Grebe, and 13 Bewick's Swan

The 'Moss Lane Swans' are fewer in number now, have moved even further away and inaccessible, and are more spread out now, but c.115 Whooper Swan distant almost certainly had 'some' Bewick's Swan with them, 6 Bewick's Swan were on a flood off the road to Cockersands Caravan Park, and 10 Whooper Swan were in the Cocker channel, c.2,000 Pink-footed Geese were on Cockerham Marsh.

It was a bit thin for birds at Cockersands considering I gave the area a good three hours, 22 Black-tailed Godwit were feeding on the tide-line off Crook Farm and from here to Plover Scar I counted 175 Dunlin, 2 Red-breasted Merganser and a lone drake Eider were off here. I noted c.320 Golden Plover in an Abbey Farm field. 


Small Tortoiseshell. Pete Woodruff.

A butterfly at Cockersands flew past me purposefully south but unfortunately escaped ID but I'm quite confident it was a Small Tortoiseshell.

And for Tuesday....

With an hour or two free-time yesterday I decided to go to Fluke Hall and leg it to Cockers Dyke where I was rewarded by 2 Mediterranean Gull both adult with virtually full black hood, also a solitary Grey Plover noted. On my way back to Fluke Hall, 2 Little Egret seen, also a flock of around 40 birds were mainly Pied Wagtail with one or two Meadow Pipit and a Skylark


Leucistic Pink-footed Goose Dave Appleton

On Pilling Marsh I estimated 3,000 Pink-footed Geese including two leucistic individuals, and noted 6 Brown Hare as something of a coincidence after mentioning the lack of them in the Cockersands area in my post on Monday. The two Siskin in our garden last Saturday returned briefly again yesterday morning.  

Though unrelated to the post, a couple of excellent photographs.... 


Chiffchaff Warren Baker  


The first of which is Warren's excellent Chiffchaff with some brilliant natural lighting effect on it....

Richardson's Canada Goose/Barnacle Geese Colin Bushell  


....and Colin's Richardson's Canada Goose with nine 'heads down' Barnacle Geese. Iv'e yet to see my first one of this race of Canada Goose.

And finally....

The first Stonechats have been reported from Portland Bill Observatory with nine birds seen on 28 February and three more yesterday 5 March....ALLELUIA!!

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for looking in Julie.

    With the exception of any of my pics the photography on Birds2blog is always of the best quality.

    ReplyDelete