Saturday Birds.

Weekend birding is a rare event for me, but last Saturdays decision to go for it turned out to be a good one, if only because.....

Corn Bunting Simon Hawtin 

....I found a Corn Bunting at Cockersands, being the first one I ever saw in our recording area despite all my years of birding, the bird was found on a roadside fence post on the east side of Abbey Farm. Searching through the past ten years of local annual reports the Corn Bunting has been regularly seen in our recording area, all have been at Cockersands with the exception of three sightings, two at Sand Villa and one at Braides Farm, though two years had no reports, and one year the species got no mention.

Whitethroat. Howard Stockdale.

Also noted at Cockersands, 3 Whitethroat included one collecting nesting material, good views of a Sedge Warbler presumably nesting as it was scolding as I watched and I got a good sound recording of this. I saw 5 Skylark, and saw three young Lapwing bringing my total to five birds this year all in uncultivated fields. Twenty two Eider and a pair of Great-crested Grebe were the only birds I saw on the sea despite several scans from Cockersands Lighthouse to Rossall Point.

Stoat. Phillip Tomkinson @ Wildsnaps

I glimpsed a Stoat at Cockersands crossing the road with prey in it's jaws before disappearing into an overgrown ditch, it appeared to be a young bird, possibly Lapwing and certainly not a mammal as in the excellent PT image above.

On Jeremy Lane, 2 Reed Bunting and a single Tree Sparrow seen. On the Lune Estuary at Glasson Dock I saw six geese, three of which were Greylag having characteristics of the Eastern race rubrirostris being much paler and distinctly cleaner grey, with a pink bill, they were accompanied by 3 Canada Geese, but there's more on these three Greylags in a post to follow, 7 Eider were the only other birds I noted on the estuary.

A Common Tern was over the canal basin at Glasson Dock, probably one of the Conder Pool birds where the female was seen settled into one of the boxes and was later joined by the male. Swift and Sand Martin were over the pool, and a pair of Tufted Duck and Little Egret were present. In the creeks I noted a single Dunlin with Redshank, and on a wander round Conder Green, a Reed Warbler heard, a pair of Reed Bunting and Linnet seen, with House Martins visiting nests at River Winds and Cafe d' Lune.