On The Increase....Well Slightly!

Some slight increase in 'local' bird numbers yesterday on my rounds, and with an apparent influx of Curlew Sandpiper into our area. At Conder Green there are now 4 Little Grebe on Conder Pool, four didn't arrive until 3 September last year, 2 Spotted Redshank were in the creeks, in 2012 here had been two here since 3 July with three seen ten days later on 19 July. Also noted on the pool, a Greenshank, 6 Snipe, and a Common Sandpiper, with 14 Teal notable in the creeks. On the Lune Estuary at Glasson Dock - where the gull count didn't reach three figures - a smart adult Mediterranean Gull was one of the first birds I picked out, 10 Black-tailed Godwit, with estimates of 2,500 Lapwing, 450 Redshank, 45 Golden Plover, and a mere 2 Dunlin. A Goosander was also of note, and I picked up a distant Peregrine Falcon which had sent several hundred Lapwing into the air in panic over Stodday/Aldcliffe, probably the same bird which had had the same effect on the waders at Glasson Dock just a few minutes earlier but which I did'nt pick up at the time.

Another increase was in migrants at Cockersand where I found 3 Curlew Sandpiper juvenile just SW of the Lighthouse Cottage with c.150 Dunlin and a similar number of Ringed Plover, a single Turnstone, Sanderling, a Wheatear, and a Goosander off Plover Scar. And yes....I ran out of time again.

On another excellent day for butterflies I saw just eight in the six hours I was out, being 2 Common Blue and 6 Small Tortoiseshell....this is serious.

Coming soon....

Whooper Swan. Gary Jones. Portraits Of Nature 

Hard to believe, but the Whooper Swans are coming, and even harder to believe, if its going to be an 'early bird' it could be in our area next week, though my first record wasn't until 4 October last year when I saw seven off Pilling Lane Ends, though I did find a Whooper Swan on the Lune Estuary at Glasson Dock on Tuesday 21 August, it was seen regularly after that until it presumably joined the relatives when they arrived later in the year. GJ's photograph has been featured on Birds2blog before, but I have no hesitance in posting it again....'cos its brilliant. Thanks Gary.

Going soon.... 

Swallow Martin Jump 

The Swallows will soon be departing and in the main will be gone by the end of September, though one was seen at Leighton Moss in 2011 until 30 November, you have to wonder if a bird so late in the UK ever got back to its winter quarters in Africa. Thanks for the brilliant image of your Swallow Martin.