By Way Of A Change!

The saying goes....A change is as good as a rest, and with a decent day and an hour or so free time, I was off to Leighton Moss for my first visit there in 5 years, since August 2018.

First port of call was the Eric Morecambe Hide. With the glare of the sun in your face, not the best choice, coupled with birds often in the distance of the far floods. The better choice would have been to view from the Crag viewpoint, from where most of the sightings have been made recently.

But the sun in your eyes didn't put into silhouette 5 Spoonbill, a Cattle Egret, and 15 Little Egret, all seen mid-distance. Also at least 500 Black-tailed Godwit solved the glare of the sun problem, when they took to the wing over the far flood, also a Greenshank put in an appearance before quickly disappearing from view.

I then decided the Causeway Hide was my next stop, from where I soon picked out 2 Great White Egret on the distant bare branches of a dead tree, and 30 minutes later picked out an Osprey in the same dead tree tearing a large fish to pieces for lunch.    

Several Migrant Hawker seen at Leighton Moss today, this one obligingly hovering in front of the window of the Causeway Hide, also a Kingfisher came twice to perch on a post close by.

With just a half hour left to spare, I gave the remaining time to Lillian's Hide - God forbid - but was truly amazed to find it void of Bearded Tit and Bittern hunters, so had the place to myself for a while, to see another Great White Egret putting in an appearance.

Black-headed Gull. Pete Woodruff.

 

In my experience, gull's are generally a much neglected species, but this one shows how attractive these birds are, and was one of around 60 Black-headed Gull from Lillian's Hide today. 

The North Corner From Lillian's Hide. Pete Woodruff.

The only other notes I made from Lillian's Hide, where of at least 70 Gadwall and 2 Little Grebe.

Saturday 2 September.

Migrant Hawker. Pete Woodruff.

A pleasant wander along the Lancaster Canal north from Garstang, yielded up to 20 Migrant Hawker, 9 Brown Hawker and 2 Blue Tailed Damselfly.