Tuesday's Birds.

 

Wot No Pics!

No bird pics, but there's a moth to fill the post at the foot of the page.

Conder Green coughed up nothing new for me on Tuesday, but my notes included 3 Common Sandpiper, a Greenshank, and a single Black-tailed Godwit which has previously been regularly seen in the creeks here as an observation I can never understand with the species usually seen as gregarious. Conder Pool was almost deserted with just the one Little Grebe and drake Wigeon seen.

On the Lune Estuary, though they returned to Cockersands recently, c.200 Golden Plover at Glasson Dock were my first autumn birds here, a similar number of Redshank were feeding close by from the bowling green, with c.1,000 Lapwing being a minimum estimate, 12 Little Egret was today's count.

Plover Scar at Cockersands was another deserted area an hour before high tide with little more than 12 Dunlin and 5 Ringed Plover seen. Along the headland I noted 2 Wheatear, and up to 20 Linnet. A good number of Swallow were over the barley field by lighthouse cottage, and the only butterfly I saw was a Red Admiral.

An hour around the farmland at Lower Thurnham, although I rarely record such sightings, a small passerine on an out of range fence post was seen as a 'possible' Stonechat, with 4 Wheatear, a Stock Dove, and a Buzzard over.

My birding hasn't progressed very much from routine lately, but....there's a good time coming.

The Moth.  

Shaded Broad-bar. Pete Woodruff.

I took this photograph of the Shaded Broad-bar moth in July 2013. The species has one generation which is widespread and fairly common throughout Britain, the larvae feed on Vetch and Clover, the adults flying in July and August.