Notes From The Estuary.

On Friday I managed to get a couple of hours in on the Lune Estuary and thereabouts. I made some notes, though nothing new - even some of the old were missing - and certainly nowt spektakler, but interesting all the same....birding always is.

On a very quiet Conder Pool, 2 Snipe, and 14 Little Grebe was my best count from about six, a Sparrowhawk flew along the far side of the pool. Fifteen Greylag were on the marsh, two of which were collar marked, a Common Sandpiper was again in the creeks and I'm beginning to think this is maybe the bird set to winter here again this year. A Kingfisher put on a good show in the creeks, seen flying around, then returning later to perch on a large boulder in the creeks to soon fly off again.

Of note on the Lune Estuary from the bowling green, a juvenile Mediterranean Gull, a Greenshank, 4 Black-tailed Godwit, and a Snipe. A Buzzard was over Jeremy Lane, and although the birding was never going to be lengthy today, it came on a misty damp drizzle, which was the decider that the game was over for me.

Greylag Geese. Martin Lofgren @ Wild Bird Gallery  

I had a prompt response to my submission of the two collar marked Greylag at Conder Green. The birds are a male and female and suspected could be a pair which were marked at Ambleside in Cumbria earlier this year on 25 June....Thanks to Kane Brides at WWT for the speed at which he responded with the details, I'm impressed and they were appreciated, thanks also to Martin Lofgren for his image of the Greylag Geese, also appreciated.

The Header. 

The Wheatear in the header is one of four I saw on Plover Scar last Tuesday 6 September, and is one of eleven I saw on the day at Cockersand. The Wheatear is well up the list of favourite passerines for me, and heralds the spring as one of the first migrants we see usually in March, it's an easy bird to identify with it's brilliant white rump as it fly's directly and with a purpose, at speed along the shore at Cockersand with barely a wing beat to be seen.

The Wheatear can spend on average up to 8 months - March to October - in this country, the earliest spring record for the species in Lancashire is 26 February 2003, and the latest autumn record is 27 November 2011.

When I was on Plover Scar with the Wheatear last Tuesday, I echo what Ana Minguez Corella has said in her comment....'a pleasure to spend moments with these beautiful creatures'.