Two birding days in a row being the wrong one. This time the plan was Birk Bank for an update on the state of the dragons there, but hey'up, it was a dreary start to the day, with cloud and low mist over Clougha as I gazed out the bedroom window, which is where Plan A went out of to be switched to Plan B to get an update on the birdlife of Conder Pool.
Little Ringed Plover Conder Pool 30 July. Pete Woodruff.
As I soon found to my great pleasure, this turned out to be an excellent switch of plans, the Little Ringed Plover pair had a trio of chicks surviving to at least 10 days old.
I had only been present at the pool about 10 minutes, when an adult dropped in front of me below the tern platform, then within another few minutes, one, then two, then three chicks....Alleluia!
In the hour I spent at Conder Pool, the three chicks never once came together, but this was the best of days for me at Conder Pool, and after the disasterous year for the LRP's and Avocets, this was an uplifting sight.
Thanks to Howard Stockdale who, with the delightful LRP family, claims a hat trick of recent header images on B2B.
With an update on the terns, I counted 10 Common Tern adult, with seven roosting on an island and two young still on the platform, and in a perfect line for easy counting, at the back of the pool, 17 Greenshank, up to 500 Redshank and 2 Little Grebe. Interesting, that unless they were in hiding, I saw not a single Avocet today.
Conder Pool.
Conder Pool has never failed to come up with at least some surprise for me over the many years I've been visiting this amazing location.
If I picked out just three of these memorable records, I would first choose the White-winged Black Tern which I found quartering the marsh on the Lune Estuary at Glasson 22 years ago on 14 August 2003, when Conder Pool was in its infancy, and where this brilliant bird visited on more than one occasion. The second choice would be the Black-necked Grebe which I found 1 September 2008, and the third would be the Common Scoter seen 27 October 2008.
Fast forward 22 years on, to add to the excellent record of the Little Ringed Plover pair, having made five attempts at breeding on Conder Pool, we have the success of 3 chicks still surviving when I last saw them on Wednesday.
And finally, we have the excellent record of a Common Tern bearing a white darvic ring CR3, ringed in Ireland, and if my information from a reliable source is correct, another Common Tern was seen on Conder Pool bearing a green ring, ringed in Germany.
Thanks to Ian Hartley for help with the info re the white ringed Common Tern. Also thanks to John Wallace for the use of his excellent image of the Common Tern.
Conder Pool....What next 😃
The Woodruff family were delighted to see a juvenile Robin arrive in the garden yesterday 2 August. An adult Robin returned to the garden last year on 28 August, and the year before on 18 July 2023.
