Twite Twitch....Black Dip!

I decided to walk from Fluke Hall to Knott End and saw at least 150 Twite in the process. They were seen in four separate and mobile flocks, though on one occasion I was able to observe birds feeding in the long marsh grasses. 

The Twite is notorious for difficulty in reading rings on their short legs often seen in long grass, but one bird was identified as a Heysham ringed individual with its pale blue over metal ring on the right leg, and a white ring on the left leg which was presumably marked with a number impossible to read as is often the case and certainly was this time. 

Twite. Geoff Gradwell. 

Thanks to GG for the image above of the ringed - yes it is ringed - Twite which clearly illustrates the difficulties with this species. 

At Cockers Dyke I did a couple of sifts through c.300 Black-headed Gull to find nothing I couldn't identify with them, and noted c.150 Redshank and similar Lapwing, a single Black-tailed Godwit, a 'few' Meadow Pipit, and a Little Egret.  On my way back to Lancaster, I saw up to 2,000 Pink-footed Geese in a field on Lancaster Road from a moving car. 

I was amazed to find my car automatically turning left off the A588 to pull up of it's own accord at the viewing platform at Conder Pool....isn't that amazing! 

The count this time was of 17 Little Grebe, four of which were in the creeks where I saw a Spotted Redshank. Four Goldeneye and 15 Wigeon were also noted on Conder Pool, and I flushed a Snipe again upstream from the road bridge.

....and the Black Dip!

Black Redstart Marc Heath 

It would have been nice to see a Black Redstart on the walk along the coastal path probably in the Cockers Dyke area where it had been reported the day before. But I decided to do a U turn and go back to Fluke Hall effectively cutting my planned walk in half which turned out to be my mistake, but a mistake I wouldn't have made had I received the news earlier than I did, that the Black Redstart had been seen a few metres further down the coastal path just beyond my U turn.

I didn't get the news about the bird until late afternoon, it apparently having been seen late morning four and a half hours earlier at 11.30am....Hard luck, you dipped Mr Woodruff!

Thanks for the BR Marc, brilliant image of a brilliant bird. Thanks also to Bob Bushell for the excellent shot of the drake Goldeneye in the new header.