If You're Going To Be A Birder....

....and want to be called one, for goodness sake do it right.

Always a big mistake to go birding and leave the telescope behind, and on Tuesdays circuit of Conder Green my mistake soon became apparent when I could see a large number of waders high tide roosting on the marsh off the picnic site and in need of close scrutiny, So I hot footed it back to the motor to collect the gear and be rewarded by having at least 1,300 waders in view with c.500 Black-tailed Godwit and just 3 Bar-tailed Godwit, also a similar number of 500 Redshank which were accompanied by 2 Ruff, a solitary Knot, and 220 Curlew, 35 Dunlin were feeding on the tide line....an excellent selection of brilliant Lune Estuary waders. I also noted 20 Cormorant in a group one of which had a head full of white plumes. I found only 2 Goldeneye on the River Lune, and on the south end of Colloway Marsh estimated 450 Pink-footed Geese.

The Spotted Redshank was the first bird to show at Conder Green, and I found the Common Sandpiper in the Conder channel below the railway bridge where I also saw a lone drake Goldeneye. On Conder Pool I was a little surprised to find 5 Little Grebe having thought they had dispersed save the lone bird I found last Thursday. Also on the pool, small numbers of Oystercatcher, Lapwing, and Teal, with 5 Goosander, 3 Tufted Duck, and the lone L.B.B.Gull standing guard on Tern Island again. On the canal basin at Glasson Dock I counted 33 Goldeneye.

   

Bewick's Swans Cockersands. Howard Stockdale.

The Cockersands swans where spread out again as last Thursday, but as I see it there remains at least 200 Whooper Swan in the area, with 22 Bewick's Swan seen as a figure I noted on 17 February. 

Pintail. Noushka Dufort @ 1000-Pattes 

Two drake Pintail were on a flood, c.120 Golden Plover and 35 Dunlin were in a Abbey Farm field where I also saw up to 40 Skylark, with 7 Brown Hare see here today.  

Skylark Marc Heath 

Thanks to Howard/Noushka/Marc for the images.

Don't be like me, be a proper birder!!....and have your telescope with you at all times.