Black-tailed Godwit. Lune Estuary 29 April 2016. Pete Woodruff.
On the Lune Estuary at Glasson Dock on Tuesday, an arrival in style when my count came to at least 2,250 Black-tailed Godwit, a spectacular sight with some of the males standing out in their well advanced bright orange-rufous breeding plumage even at the distance. This count exceeds mine or any other previous counts at this location, including WeBS counts for the Lune Estuary.
Also mingling with the BTG's I could pick out a few Knot and Dunlin, with 6 Goldeneye, a drake Red-breasted Merganser and a pair of Goosander were also of note....The Spotted Redshank and Common Sandpiper with 3 Little Grebe were all on show in the creeks at Conder Green, and 3 Goosander were on Conder Pool.
At Cockersand, the swan herd was tighter grouped than it has been for several weeks now and was off Moss Lane in fields to the west of Thursland Hill, a report on Sunday came up with a count of 538 Whooper Swan. I found two parties of 11 Bewick's Swan off Slack Lane, seen as 4 adult and 7 juvenile. From the four seen here recently, I saw just the one pair of Shoveler today, also in the flooded field 16 Pied Wagtail noted, and some flighty finches seen in the Lighthouse Cottage area, were almost certainly the c.60 Twite from the rough field behind Bank House Cottage in recent weeks. In Bank Houses horse paddock, 10 Blackbird, 3 Tree Sparrow, a singing Dunnock, Robin, a male Chaffinch, 6 Wood Pigeon, and 2 Collared Dove.
Further Afield.
Though Stonechat migration may well have taken off in our area, there's been little of any note on the migrant front at PBO yet, though I found a pulse of 10 Stonechat interesting and reported as new there on Tuesday.
A quote from the website yesterday 8 March....'bird-wise there wasn't a single worthwhile sighting logged on the day-sheet'.
I don't know how you can count that many birds!
ReplyDeleteWow.
Amazing to consider.
Not counted Tammie, though most birders recorded them as counts, they are actually estimates once it gets to numbers like the BTG's in this case. I intend to write an article on my take on 'counting' birds sometime.
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