Struggling

Not so much with a bit of local patch news but rather a dilemma to find new photographs after a torrid few hours fighting in the face of a strong westerly with a heavy shower or two thrown into the mix. So the camera stayed in the bag, my baseball hat blew off more once then headed towards Cockerham without me, whilst my notebook had wet, blotchy, blue entries instead of neat pencilled items because I am an adult and don’t use pencils.

A 2pm tide beckoned even though at just over 28ft it was almost certainly a bit of a short arse and wouldn’t reach the necessary height to concentrate any decent numbers of waders. Out from Lane Ends there wasn’t much point in ear birding, listening for birds in competition with the blustery head wind that drowned out all but the nearest sound, but I did note a couple of brave Meadow Pipits. I found a semi sheltered spot and waited, and waited, taking a break by wandering over to the pools when I heard the Green Sandpiper. It was a bit strange when I watched the Green Sandpiper chased off a pool margin by the much smaller Pied Wagtail that continued to dive bomb the wader as it sought refuge in the middle of the pool. As the wagtail continued, the sandpiper flew off further down the pool where it was left in peace. Maybe the almost black and white colouration of the sandpiper combined with its bobbing feeding action led the wagtail to think it had to chase off a very large wagtail?

Teal came in with the tide; I counted 400 flying in, rather than out from the wildfowler’s pools from where they probably spend the darker hours on the easy food menu. Also on the tide, flying about briefly were my first Pintail of the autumn, but only 10. Returning Shelduck plus birds of the year now number more than 60, still way off the eventual winter numbers of course.

I made a special effort to count the Little Egrets today but I don’t think the mediocre tide helped my mediocre count of 6 birds, with a single Grey Heron only. The incoming tide pushed in 2 Greenshank to add to the one I had already seen on the wildfowler’s water, where I won’t be welcome come 1st September unless I carry a gun rather than a telescope.

I’d sat for some time watching Swallows, every single one arriving from the east, north east or south east before they fed either over the outflow of Pilling Water or on the inland side before leaving to the west and Fluke Hall. I also counted House Martins arriving and leaving in a similar fashion with eventual migration totals of 350+ Swallows and 40 House Martins, which confirmed my on-going thought ratio of 10:1 in favour of Swallows.

Linnets abounded today with 22+ but smaller numbers of Goldfinch at 9 and a single windswept Wheatear scratching a living near the United Utilities bits and pieces, the training ground for budding earthmovers and timewasters. The Kingfisher put in an appearance when it flew from behind me, out along the channel, over the marsh and back again towards the pools, Teal City and Mallard Heaven. I think it wants to sit on the parapet at the channel but if it spots a human form, does a circuit then disappears out of sight and waits for another occasion.

So, as now becomes obvious there are too many words and not enough pictures, repetitive shite perhaps as a fellow blogger accused me of? The problem is that when someone works a local patch it can be monotonous, maybe even boring but at least I’m out there looking, not a slave to a pager or a phone call and when I do find the big one or even a teeny weeny little one on my local patch, it will give me the greatest satisfaction in the world. Maybe I’ll delete the link to his blog, deplete any readers he ever had and consign him to clicking his counter to inflate his visitor numbers, right hand man.

Pintail

Swallow and House Martin
Teal
Wheatear

The weather forecast doesn’t look much better for tomorrow so perhaps I’ll watch the GP instead of birding, but then you never know.