Sunday, 23 June 2019

Boring Birding!

For a day in June - a month when birding is regarded to be going nowhere - Friday was a good day which had some movement and action to keep me interested for an hour or two, and some butterflies came too....Boring Birding!....I don't think so.

Four Common Sandpiper were at Conder Green on Friday, they found their way into the little black book three days later than the four returning birds seen here on 18 June last year, when they peaked at thirteen on 17 July, we'll see if that figure will be beaten this year in the coming weeks.

On Conder Pool, 7 Avocet have decided to set up camp again, with two birds sitting, one of which showed at least two eggs as it got up to stretch it's legs. The same number of 7 Common Tern were doing much noisy flighting around, with two healthy growing young, and one adult bird sitting tight in the right hand corner of the pontoon. The Black-headed Gull young continue to grow apace, and on the whole, the pontoon remains to have a 'welcome to the pleasure dome' feel about it.

Also on a quite lively Conder Pool, a lone Black-tailed Godwit was feeding frantically, a Little Ringed Plover put in a brief appearance, as did 2 Stock Dove, and at least 85 Black-headed Gull have colonised the large island. But I reckon the bird to collect the most points on Conder Pool today was the drake Pochard, seen at best as irregular here. A summering drake Wigeon was down the channel from the iron bridge.


Painted Lady Conder Green 21 June. Pete Woodruff. 

A wander along the coastal path produced 6 Painted Lady, 4 Speckled Wood, and a Small Tortoiseshell. Along the canal tow-path Glasson - Conder Green, a Sparrowhawk flew from Christ Church across the canal, 2 Tree Sparrow seen again, a singing Sedge Warbler, and good number of Blue-tailed Damselflies.


Thanks again to Ian Mitchell, who sent me the excellent header butterfly which he took at Birk Bank recently.
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The video is thanks to Ian Pinkerton, and shows the frantic feeding style of a Black-tailed Godwit and Avocet on Conder Pool. You'll need to try and ignore the traffic on the busy B5290, and watch on Full Screen for the big picture if you can.




1 comment:

  1. Not a bad list at all there Pete. Nice to see Painted Ladies growing in number and like the header photo too.

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