Showing posts with label Shoveler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shoveler. Show all posts

Thursday, January 14, 2021

Rain Day

With the UK under severe lockdown there is no bird ringing allowed unless in one's own garden.  With vehicle travel limited to “essential” and “local journeys” only, it's unlikely I will be able to do much birding or even to get out with a camera.  Add to that 24 hours of rain with more to come today and I'm indoors for a while.

But, keep logging in for news and views. I'll do my best to find news and views to share. 

Meanwhile here's a post to link up with my friend Rain Frances over in New Brunswick and her Thursday Art theme of  Birds and the Sky -  http://www.rainfrances.com/2021/01/thursday-art-date-birds-and-sky.html  

I thought this might prove a difficult one because although the sky is there in many of my bird photos, it is there mostly as a backdrop to the bird or birds. 

So I looked through my photo archive for photos to find some that would satisfy the criteria of Birds and the Sky. Here we go Rain and readers - hope you like my selection of Birds and the Sky, sometimes combined.  I didn't realise there were so many until searching the hard drive. 

Blue, grey, white, cloudy, dark, light, red, and black from all around the world. Some with birds some not.  In no particular order. For best results click on the picture.

Swallows against the morning Sky - Glasson, Lancashire

Sepia Sky - Pilling,Lancashire

Rain on the way Sky - Fleetwood, Lancashire

Goose Sky - Pilling, Lancashire

Morning Sky trails - Rawcliffe, Lancashire

Bee Eater Sky - Menorca, Spain

Black Sky at night - Lanzarote, Spain

Cattle Egret - White on Blue Sky

Blue Sky over Sand - Fuerteventura, Spain 

Pintail ducks - Action Sky

Red Sky - Menorca, Spain

Grey Sky, Grey Day- Menorca, Spain

Tourists in the Sky - Greece

Cloudy Sky - Lanzarote

Rainbow Sky - Pilling, Lancashire

Lapwing Sky

Coloured Sky - Pilling, Lancashire

Big Sky - Lanzarote, Spain

Orange Sky - Knott End, Lancashire

Moody Sky - Rawcliffe, Lancashire

Hitchcock Sky - Pilling, Lancashire

Egyptian Sky - Makadi Bay, Egypt

Another Big Sky,  Lanzarote, Spain

Northern Shovelers Sky

Photos via Canon, Sigma and Sony. 

Now if I just had £17,000 I could update my gear to the latest Sony A7R 1V camera with a Sony FE 600mm F/4 Lens and a Sony FE 24-70mm F2.8 Lens

How did I do with the post Rain?

Linking on Saturday 16 January to Viewing Nature With Eileen and also birding in Texas with Anni I'd Rather Be Birding.

 


Saturday, April 22, 2017

Good Morning

The morning started in fine style. Not a cloud in the sky and a promise of sun all day. There was no ringing today so I set off birding camera at the ready as mist began to clear from the ditches and dykes. 

Pilling morning, Lancashire

All was quiet at Conder Green save for the usual display flights of the Oystercatchers and the resident Shelducks still sorting out their pairs. I looked across at the far bank hoping to see the elusive Avocets but instead of the expected two I saw four. There seemed little aggression between the four as they all fed together until at one point two flew across to a nearer island. After a few minutes the pair flew back to join the others on the far side of the pool and I turned my attention to what else might be lurking unseen.  It was cold and just 3°C at 0730. Visible migration seemed nil apart from a few Swallows and Sand Martins heading north at a fair rate of knots. 

Shelduck

Avocets

Avocet

I looked around for other birds and on the water found 18 Shelduck, 16 Oystercatcher, 6 Tufted Duck, 1 Great Crested Grebe, 1 Goosander and 2 Teal. A Kingfisher flew by but didn’t stay. Kingfishers breed not far away along the canal or upstream of the River Conder which just here is little more than a trickle of water at the end of its journey from the inland fells. 

In the creeks and on the marsh: 2 Greenshank, 1 Spotted Redshank, 1 Common Sandpiper, 1 Curlew, 4 Little Egret, 1 Grey Heron and 2 Pied Wagtail. 

I drove up to Cockersands where the drake Shoveler still frequents the flash flood that will soon dry up. I’d watched him fly in from close by and where I think his mate is hidden on a nest. The handsome Shoveler is now something of a scarce breeding bird in this part of Lancashire whereby a possible breeding pair is quite noteworthy. 

Shoveler

Near Lighthouse Cottage a female wagtail was busy collecting nest material while the male looked on. That looks to be a rather fine finishing material she’s collecting for the nest lining. 

 Pied Wagtail

 Pied Wagtail

I heard my first Whitethroat of the year. It was jumping around between the hedge and the bramble fence-line, singing for all it was worth after that long journey from Africa. There was a Sedge Warbler along the ditch too but it sang from low down with just a sub-song at that. Maybe it tuned up later after I‘d hi-tailed it towards the caravan park. 

Whitethroat

I noted several Linnets about and also six or eight very mobile Twite. The Twite spent a minute or two on the overhead wires before they twittered off into the distance towards the shore. The Twite is very closely related to the Linnet and carries the colloquial name of “mountain linnet” after its habitat preference for the uplands. A male Twite has a very short yellow beak and no pink chest, unlike the Linnet which has a heavier greyish bill and at this time of year a bright red chest. The call of the two species in flight is similar, but to the trained ear noticeably different. 

Twite

Twite

There wasn’t much doing near the caravan park although I did notice much more Brown Hare activity than of late, including a little chasing and sparring. The sunny morning helped me see upwards of 20 hares this morning although not all of them were as obliging as the ones that sit motionless, ears sleeked back and disguised as a clump of earth. Mostly they run from the sound of an approaching vehicle or footsteps. Look closer, it’s a Brown Hare, not a bundle of brown soil. 

 Brown Hare

Brown Hare

Towards the caravan park: 6 singing Skylark, 6 Tree Sparrow, 4 Goldfinch, 1 Grey Heron, 1 Little Egret and 80+ Lapwing. 

Skylark

Fingers crossed for those Lapwings and Skylarks.

Linking this post to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday and Anni's Birding Blog.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Greenland Bound

I wasn’t too sure about this morning’s first Wheatear, a second year male with lots of last year’s brown juvenile feathers on the crown and ear coverts. At first it both felt and looked rather bulky, but its weight was in line with ones caught recently, the wing measurement longer at 105mm. The weight of 26 grams was slightly above those of last week although upon closer examination there wasn’t a hint of excess fat; in fact the poor thing seemed a little on the skinny side. There are no midnight snacks or raiding the fridge during a Wheatear’s overnight journey. 

Northern Wheatear

Northern Wheatear

The second bird was a “Greenland” before I even took it from the trap. Big and bright this adult male easily met the biometric parameters for Oenanthe oenanthe leucorhoa, the large and colourful so called “Greenland” race of Northern Wheatear. Its wing measurement of 116mm was equal to that of a Redwing or a Song Thrush, it had a smidgen of migratory fat in the furculum and weighed in at 29.8 grams. What a cracker of a bird! 

Northern Wheatear - "Greenland" type - Oenanthe oenanthe leucorhoa 

Northern Wheatear - "Greenland" type - Oenanthe oenanthe leucorhoa

Wiki's summary is superb. 

"The Northern Wheatear makes one of the longest journeys of any small bird, crossing ocean, ice, and desert. It migrates from Sub-Saharan Africa in Spring over a vast area of the northern hemisphere that includes northern and central Asia, Europe, Greenland, Alaska, and parts of Canada. 

Birds of the large, bright Greenland race, leucorhoa, makes one of the longest transoceanic crossings of any passerine. In spring most migrate along a route (commonly used by waders and waterfowl) from Africa via continental Europe, the British Isles, and Iceland to Greenland. However, autumn sightings from ships suggest that some birds cross the North Atlantic directly from Canada and Greenland to southwest Europe, a distance of up to 2500 km). 

Birds breeding in eastern Canada are thought to fly from Baffin Island and Newfoundland via Greenland, Ireland, and Portugal to the Azores (crossing 3500 km of the North Atlantic) before flying onwards to Africa. Other populations from western Canada and Alaska migrate by flying over much of Eurasia to Africa. 

Miniature tracking devices have recently shown that the Northern Wheatear has one of the longest migratory flights known - 30,000 km from sub-Saharan Africa to their Arctic breeding grounds."

A blogging pal in Ontario offered to swap a few Blue Jays and Cardinals for a Northern Wheatear. David, I sent two Wheatears in your direction this morning, last seen heading quickly North and West and so coming your way soon. I’ll settle for an autumn warbler thanks and on the blue theme, a Cerulean would be rather nice. 

Northern Wheatear

Things were quiet along the sea wall this morning, the overcast conditions not conducive to migration even though the 7 or 8 Wheatears I saw obviously found a way through the gloom. 

At Lane Ends I heard and saw my first Willow Warbler of the Spring with the now regular Chiffchaff in good voice. A Lesser Redpoll, a few Meadow Pipits and Linnets flew east, and apart from 4 Skylarks that was it. 

On the wildfowler’s pools are reasonable numbers of Teal, 19 or 20 birds which fly out to the salt marsh when disturbed, while the group of 9 Shoveler circle for a while before returning to the pools. 

 Shoveler

There are more birds and bird pictures soon from Another Bird Blog. Log in tomorrow and see "what's about".

Linking today to Eileen's Saturday Blog and Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Are You Having A Laugh?

There was no birding today in the very unfunny showers and windy conditions prevailing up here in the Grim North, but I have a little news to relay from Monday's truncated birding session at Pilling. 

Also, and if nothing else, the strange world of British Birding can usually be relied upon to generate a laugh or two. So in the absence of birding news from today and as a light relief, there follows later in the post an amusing tale of birding. 

Two Green Sandpipers surprised me on Monday, taking off together from the wildfowler’s pools as I approached, calling as they flew North West. I suspect that both were Spring migrants, neither of them the “green sand” I’ve failed all winter to photograph, the one that has had a regular laugh at my expense. Other wildfowl and waders on marsh and pool - 210 Shelduck, 300 Pink-footed Goose, 18 Teal, 1 Shoveler and the Brent Goose of recent months, the dark-bellied bird feeding with Shelducks at the outer edge of the marsh. 

Shoveler

Pink-footed Goose

Along the sea wall were small numbers of Meadow Pipits plus a single Rock Pipit, and I’m missing the movement north of large numbers of Meadow Pipits which should by 18th March be more obvious. 

Meadow Pipit

On the flood, 32 Lapwings, the now regular but varying count of Golden Plover at 155 and a Kestrel from the Damside pair patrolling the roadside. 

Kestrel

If all this patch work seems more than a little tame, from the weekend there’s a wretched account of twitching played out in the rural landscape of English Sussex and subsequently discussed at inordinate length on an Internet birding forum. All of it concerned a Savannah Sparrow that never was. 

It happens fairly regularly that in their impatience to make a name for themselves on "the scene" a birder will sometimes make a mistake in their ID of a bird, and then in their subsequent haste for fame, prematurely post the sighting on a blog or a bird alert service. 

More rarely such urgency for fame turns into desperation whereby a person will invent or elaborate a sighting in order to generate credibility and kudos within the hallowed community to which they aspire. 

Unfortunately for them, if they get it wrong there will be repercussions. A genuine mistake can be forgotten with a friendly pat on the shoulder, perhaps after a time the error of judgement forgiven and normalities resumed. However a deliberate attempt to deceive the serious world of chasing rare birds invites a fate almost worse than death where sanctions will include at the least the cold shoulder, exclusion from forums or pager services and the probable loss of erstwhile birder mates. 

In extremis, on this occasion and in all seriousness a few forum contributors have suggested that a physical beating or legal proceedings may be in order. I kid you not. 

Read all about it here but do have a tissue at hand to wipe away the tears. 

Savannah Sparrow - Photo credit: USFWS Headquarters / Foter / CC BY 

Now to the Google searcher who typed in the query "Do pigeons have willys?" and who eventually found my blog.

There is a definitive and serious answer to this ornithological query, but I'm not sure you will find the answer on Bird Forum. The answer is here instead. 

Wood Pigeon - "I'm not telling"

More laughs, facts and photos from Another Bird Blog soon.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

A Rare Visit

The continuing strong winds have made for a birder’s lazy week, so today I thought I’d pay one of my rare visits to the RSPB Leighton Moss Nature Reserve a fifty minute drive up the M6. With a bit of luck I’d see a few birds in shelters spots and get a few photographs to share with blog followers.I ended up with an enjoyable few hours birding, a good list of birds, but not too many pictures. 

The “summer visitors” Marsh Harriers are still in residence and with three birds this morning, it seems likely that at least one may spend the winter here. It’s not so long ago that Marsh Harriers reappeared in the North West, now they are a common enough sight in most seasons. At first light two harriers were hunting across the reeds, one of them taking a Coot from the water and then flying off with the hapless bird.

Little Egrets were leaving the roost some distance away, and later on I would see at least nine throughout the reserve. Several Grey Herons at first light too. 

With being a wetland reserve Leighton Moss holds lots of wildfowl, with today many Wigeon and Teal together with smaller numbers of Gadwall, Shoveler, Pintail and Shelduck. 6 Whooper Swan were my first of the autumn. 

Teal

Teal

Pintail

Shoveler

Wigeon

Wigeon

Out from the salt marsh hides were plenty of rather distant and “into the light” waders. All the better to promote some of the very expensive optical equipment on sale at the visitor centre a cynical birder might say! 

There were high numbers of Black-tailed Godwit and Redshank, with 1 Knot and 3 mostly sleeping Curlew Sandpipers. A Kingfisher gave a double flypast, not stopping to pose. Raptors out here were the third Marsh Harrier, a Sparrowhawk and a Kestrel, and passerines a couple of Grey Wagtails, Linnets and Skylarks. 

Black-tailed Godwit

Black-tailed Godwit

Black-tailed Godwit
 
Redshank

So that's probably my annual visit to Leighton over for another year. Join Another Bird Blog soon for more far far away adventures. 

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