Briefly Birding!

Whooper Swan. Brian Rafferty.

On a relatively brief birding day Wednesday I made the short trip south down the A588 to find 82 Whooper Swan, 62 of which were on Pilling Marsh, and 20 in a field off Fluke Hall Lane, my first of the winter with not a Pink-footed Goose in sight, though I made no attempt to search further afield and onto the mosslands.

At Conder Green, Conder Pool was out of the question with the lay-by taken over by roadworks machinery, manpower, and traffic signals causing mini jams. The job appears to be a week late starting as I saw the sign erected two weeks ago claiming to start on 6 October. To make matters worse, it looks like there's work being done on both the pool and at creeks end of the outfall. I'd guess the pool was void of birdlife though I didn't go near the place....the creeks certainly were deserted.

Spotted Redshank. Brian Rafferty. 

A walk round the undisturbed parts of the creeks had me finding a Spotted Redshank, Common Sandpiper, and Snipe. Along the coastal path and looking in the wrong direction, when I turned I caught sight of the back end of a flock of what were almost certainly my first Redwing.

Bar-tailed Godwit. Brian Rafferty

Checking the Lune Estuary as I legged it along the path I estimated at least 350 Bar-tailed Godwit up a hundred on my count there on Monday, a 'few' knot were intermingled with them. By the time I got to Glasson Dock I had seen a Spotted Redshank, Greenshank, c.200 Dunlin, 150 Golden Plover, and a Goosander hauled out.

Migrants at Walney.

Yellow-browed Warbler. Stuart Piner.

I note in addition to having 7 Yellow-browed Warbler so far this autumn 17 Stonechat were amongst the grounded migrants yesterday at Walney Bird Observatory  

Thanks to BR for the trio of images for the post, and to SP for the YBW at Cockersands last autumn, they are much appreciated. 

Good news about a bad idea. 

If you read and had any interest in This perhaps you'd like to know the status of the Planning Application which is that it has been withdrawn. But....'And here's another bad idea'....certainly hasn't been withdrawn and is at best not a good plan if it goes ahead.