Birds And Boats.

The Birds.

Last Friday in Bowland as I was approaching Langden, I noticed a good number of House Martin around Sykes Farm, nothing too surprising about that, as the birds are always to be seen here each year, in fact one year I made a decent count of nests at this farm.

I decided to take a closer look at the House Martins today, but first made it my business to see the farmer to ask permission to look round the rear of this property attached to the farm. I had an interesting conversation with the farmer who told me he willingly accommodated the House Martins and Swallows on his farm, and that it was OK for me to take a look round....I suspected his farm may well be holding a record number of nesting House Martins.

I was right, and discovered that Sykes Farm has the biggest House Martin nesting colony I've seen and held up to 50 nests, the majority of which appeared to be active.

The Boats.

A little shipping interest at Cockersands on Monday. 

Passing The Cockersands Light. Pete Woodruff. 

For such a small port, albeit just three vessels, it was a record number to pass the lighthouse in little over thirty minutes, two left Glasson Dock on the Lune Estuary and out to sea, whilst one headed in to harbour. First out and past the lighthouse was the large cargo ship Celtic Endeavour, soon followed by the smaller Silver River, which is a coastal vessel plying to and from the Isle of Man on a weekly basis, whilst - as in the pic above - the Magdalena headed up the estuary escorted by the yellow/black pilot boat towards Glasson Dock.

The Magdalena was interesting as it flew a flag on the stern I was unable to identify, so I took a shot as it passed the lighthouse to look it up later.

Antigua and Barbuda

I discovered the ship was flying the flag of Antigua and Barbuda, the twin islands of the Americas between the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean, it was registered at the islands capital city of St John's.