October Chats.

Being the last visit to Hawthornthwaite Fell was on 11 July, I hadn't realised my birding had made such a dramatic nosedive, but I was here on Tuesday, and also back on Harrisend again to find 15 Stonechat on the day.

I was only on the track up Hawthorthwaite for 15 minutes before I found 6 Stonechat, all in this small area of heather looking east in the picture. The birds were mobile, and moving generally south east. Walking on for about 50 metres, when I looked again there was no sign of the birds.

Other than the chats, I saw just 4 Red Grouse and several airliners in the couple of hours spent here.

Whilst spending a few therapeutic minutes by Cam Brook, I was reminded of the smart male Ring Ouzel I saw here on 27 May. This was my fifth consecutive year of finding the mountain blackbird on Hawthornthwaite, only one sighting of which I ever had evidence of breeding here and was a female in flight with food in its bill. 

There was also a pleasant 3 hours spent on Harrisend, where I found 9 Stonechat. As with the Hawthorthwaite birds, five were together in a small area of gorse. Also 4 Raven over and 3 Red Grouse seen.

Clougha Pike From Harrisend. Pete Woodruff.

Wish I had a pound for every Stonechat I've ever seen atop of this remnant of the Hawthorn. I reckon I could get myself a couple of bottles of Jack Daniel's in for Christmas!

The Gannet.

There was a little sadness about a walk along the promenade at Sandylands last week, when I found the corpse of an adult Gannet on the shore, seen as a possible victim of avian flu.

Only a vagrant Albatross in the Western Palearctic is a larger seabird than the indigenous Gannet. Of the worlds breeding population, 48% are found in Scotland. This year there was a 90% breeding failure of Gannet on Bass Rock.

Turtle Dove.

Turtle Dove Hest Bank. Howard Stockdale.

A 1st winter Turtle Dove has been at Hest Bank since 13 October. There has been a mix of opinion about the bird, some seeing it as a sickly bird, dicing with death at the hands of the mutt brigade and their charges, others saying the bird looks well as it does in Howards image, it feeds well, and is a tame individual. Whatever....the bird would be better advised to stay put at Hest Bank, up to 100,000 Turtle Dove are shot annually on migration over Malta.  

Bearded Tit.....Another one of those must see images.

Bearded Tit Leighton Moss. Martin Jump.

Many Thanks to Howard and Martin for sending me these excellent images.

And Finally.

Hummingbird Hawk-moth. Peter Rhind.

Couldn't possibly end this post without mention of the brilliant Hummingbird Hawk-moth which gave us about 60 seconds of pleasure as it checked out the Verbena in our garden yesterday afternoon.

Pity I didn't get a pik of the moth, but I did get 30 seconds of comic relief with these two ponies at Heysham in the week....You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours!

FULL SCREEN....SOUND ON