Goodies Off Broadway!

Cold, overcast, and calm in the days before Darragh arrived, it was good enough for me to take a look at the incoming tide along Morecambe Promenade.

Strung out in groups of various size from Broadway to Bare, I counted at least 110 Eider. Also between Broadway and Teal Bay, 7 Great-crested Grebe and 5 Red-breasted Merganser. 

At Teal Bay, a Bar-tailed Godwit, was with Redshank and four other species. I always think it odd to see usually flocking waders as lone individuals. Also to note, 38 Wigeon, 8 Pintail, and a Wren seen a little out of context on the saltmarsh.

Scaup And Scoter.

 Scaup 4 December. Pete Woodruff.

One of the best from the visit was a female Scaup off Broadway, seen as an erratic and scarce winter visitor to Morecambe Bay.  

The Scaup was distant, but it was good to get some record footage of the scarcity, my first since I found a drake on Conder Pool 6 March. Last year there was just 21 records of Scaup in Lancashire, but included three singles in Morecambe Bay in November/December....Lancashire Bird Report 2023

Common Scoter. Paul Ellis.

But star birds were a drake and female Common Scoter which were also off Broadway. The Common Scoter doesn't feature very often in my records, in fact a clear indication of the rarity status for me, is that this is my first record since I found a female on Conder Pool 16 years ago on 27 October 2008. Seen as another duck scarce to our area, at best erratic, though sometimes seen as a common passage bird, for example flocks of 30 and 57 south past Heysham in August 2021....Birds of Lancaster & District 2021

Interesting that c.30 miles south of Morecambe, conversely I could have seen up to 2,000 Common Scoter off Blackpool North Shore on 16 November 2023....Lancashire Bird Report 2023.  

Thanks to Paul Ellis for his image of the Common Scoter at Shard Bridge 10 years ago in August 2014.

Stonechats.

It pleased me to receive three more wintering Stonechat records from Bowland recently, with a male seen on the top of Grit Fell by the adventurous Ian Mitchell. Also birds seen recently in Bowland by the ever reliable Andrew Cornall, a male by the Mountain Rescue Centre east of Langden, and a pair on Abbeystead Lane.