D & G

Posted on by The Hairy Birder - In Fleetwood Birder
Earlier in the week I had a couple of days in Dumfries and Galloway with Gail. On the first day I was working at a couple of sites assessing tree condition and growth in a couple of newly planted woodlands, whilst Gail mooched around Dumfries spending money!It's the third year that I have assessed these sites and for the past two years it has been dry at the first site and rained at the second site (further inland and higher), and this year it was just the same! The first site isn't far from the Criffel and a surprise on this visit were four Tree Pipits that I put up in my walk round. It does look like good habitat for Tree Pipits, and it obviously was! The only other thing of note was a flock of 30 - 40 Linnets feeding on the weed seed that is in abundance amongst the trees. I wouldn't be surprised if this flock gets larger as we get furth...
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Briefly Birding!

Posted on by Pete Woodruff - In Birds2blog
Think we may have had that title before, it sounds a little repetitive, and boring too, but Thursday's birding really was at the lower end of the excitement scale for me. But a couple of scans through at least 1,500 gulls on the Lune Estuary at Glasson uncovered 2 Mediterranean Gull, both adult, one moulting, one in winter plumage, wader numbers were at a low, but a distant Greenshank was good.Conder Pool held 9 Little Grebe, my best count to date this autumn, by the same date last year - 17 August - 15 Little Grebe were present here. In the creeks, 4 Common Sandpiper, and along the coastal path I found 3 Whitethroat with a juvenile still being fed. A total of 7 Speckled Wood were seen along this path and on Jeremy Lane, where thirty minutes on foot found my tenth Painted Lady. The Purple Patch.Purple Hero...
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Thursday 17th August

Posted on by Phil Slade - In Another Bird Blog
The forecast was OK for later in the day but no good for early birders like me. Rain spotted the windscreen as I stopped off at Lane Ends, Pilling, hoping for another look at the Marsh Harrier that us three ringers saw on Tuesday, possibly the same harrier one that’s been around for a week or two. Lots of local farmers have all seen the mystery bird but can’t put a name to the thing that’s “not a Buzzard and much bigger”. Our local farmers aren’t too good at bird ID but they are red hot at counting sheep & cattle or making a bob or two. Anyway I didn’t see a harrier but I did see and hear more than 25 Little Egrets leaving the island roost and 70 or more Greylags coming off the marsh and flying south. A couple of Willow Warblers tuned up ready for the day ahead, not singing but contact calling. I called nex...
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Nowt Much!

Posted on by Pete Woodruff - In Birds2blog
I can't really say nothing much to report, perhaps nothing much to impress is a little more appropriate, though in excess of 1,500 waders on the Lune Estuary at Glasson Dock was good, with estimates of 650 Redshank, 450 Lapwing, 180 Curlew, 150 Dunlin, 28 Black-tailed Godwit, and 4 Ringed Plover were all in view along the mud to the Conder mouth.In the creeks at Conder Green, 8 Teal were the first returns I've seen here, with 4 Common Sandpiper seen. Up to 40 Swallow were at/around Conder Green Farm, and House Martin are still active at some of the five nests at River Winds, with birds attending a nest at Cafe d' Lune, the House Martin can have up to three broods. A Long-tailed Tit with a young was along the coastal path, with a Robin the onl...
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Yes or No. Touch and Go.

Posted on by Phil Slade - In Another Bird Blog
Text messages flew back and forth at 5am this morning. There’d been rain most of the night with a forecast that was a little “iffy”, especially so for a site on the edge of the Bowland fells. There seemed just a small window of opportunity for a ringing session. “Let’s go for it” was the final message, so I met up with Andy at 0615 at Oakenclough. The morning remained grey with the camera set at ISO1600 but in between an odd light shower or two we managed a respectable 33 birds. Our total included one or two warblers and our second Tree Pipit of the week. 34 birds - 11 Goldfinch, 7 Goldcrest, 6 Coal Tit, 3 Robin, 2 Willow Warbler, 1 Great Tit, 1 Blue Tit, 1 Chaffinch, 1 Chiffchaff and 1 Tree Pipit. Tree PipitGoldfinches were around in some numbers today. As noted earlier in the week, there are Goldfinch...
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Butterflies, Bird’s, and a Gull.

Posted on by Pete Woodruff - In Birds2blog
Some leisure time on Sunday at Heysham had KT with me on Heysham Barrows for an hour or so to find 4 Meadow Brown, 2 Small Copper, 2 Common Blue, 2 Gatekeeper, and a Small Tortoiseshell. The only birds seen were 2 Whitethroat, with a Blackbird, Linnets and Goldfinch in flight. It was good to see a Holly Blue on Cotoneaster in our garden yesterday afternoon. Little Gull.Little Gull. Heysham Red Nab 9 August. Pete Woodruff.I was pleased to have found a Little Gull on Heysham Red Nab last Wednesday which I recorded as a 1st summer bird. But on closer viewing the moderate photograph of the bird, it was thought that, what I regarded as the dark wing tips of the bird, could well have been a deceptive view of the rocks on Red Nab appearing to look like the tail end of the bird giving the impression that it was the blackish prim...
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A Small Arrival

Posted on by The Hairy Birder - In Fleetwood Birder
Conditions overnight were clear and at 11:00 pm last night I was watching the Perseid meteor shower in the garden with Gail when I suddenly realised I needed to get to bed as I was up in less than five hours! The clear conditions led Ian and I to believe that it would be a 'clear out night', and it was to a certain extent, but there was definitely a small arrival this morning.At first light we had clear skies with a 5 mph NNW wind and it was cool, a definite nip in the air! We put the nets up in one of the Obs reedbeds and retired to our cars for a coffee. About a dozen Alba Wags went over after exiting their roost, but their numbers were dwarfed by the twelve thousand (well about that anyway) Starlings that came out of another reedbed roost.A Little Egret went over one way and a young female Sparrowhawk shot through the other. There was ev...
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Sunday’s Plan

Posted on by Phil Slade - In Another Bird Blog
They do say the British weather is unpredictable. Well not this year because there’s a definite pattern emerging in this the worst one for many a year. There’s a day of dry, then the next day of rain, and then a mixed up day when there’s sun for half of the daylight hours and rain during the remainder. Mostly it has been breezy or windy come rain or shine. So in a strange way, it is possible to plan birding, ringing and a spot of photography by looking out for the good days, ignoring the rest and planning accordingly. Luckily Sunday’s forecast of wall-to-wall sunshine looked to be one of the better days so I set off early with camera and bins at the ready. The regular as clockwork Kingfisher opened the account at Conder Green. The bird wasn’t for hanging around though and after it quickly flew off I soon saw it again g...
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Up The Wall!

Posted on by Pete Woodruff - In Birds2blog
On Thursday, I attended the funeral of a good friend at the Catholic Church of Ss Thomas & Elizabeth at Thurnham. After the service on a nice sunny day, there was going to be nothing more uplifting for me than a walk along the coastal path from Fluke Hall to Cockers Dyke, and at 1.30pm I was within a few miles of getting there from Thurnham down the A588.Wall Brown. Pete Woodruff.This was definitely a good idea, if only because I found my first Wall Brown butterfly in 6 years which was seen at Pilling Lane Ends on 2 September 2011. The irony being, today's butterfly was on one of the only three Ragwort stems left at the foot of the inland bank from the recent grass cut here on 25 July. Other butterflies taking an interest in the Ragwort and elsewhere along the path were, 9 Large White, 8 Common Bl...
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Rishton mud finally delivers

Posted on by Dave Bickerton - In Dave's Birding Blog
As can be seen from the image, the water level at Rishton Reservoir has been rather low for some time despite the recent rain. Not sure if this is because of another leak in the canal/reservoir bank but it went down dramatically during the spring and has remained low causing the Great Crested Grebes to leave. Even the local fishermen had given up and that's when birds started to turn up and remain on the "West Bank".Rishton Res from a couple of weeks ago - lots of sand/mud/rocksThere has been a steady trickle of birds through - good numbers of Black-headed Gulls with the odd Mediterranean Gull in there. Oystercatchers have been regular with up to 4 as well as Common Sandpipers with up to 7. Redshank and Little Ringed Plovers have also put in appearances along with a single Black-tailed Godwit a couple of weeks ago.Yesterday, we were looking...
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