Cockerham is always good for the resident Little Owls and when I turned up there today one of the pair was searching the peaty soil for a meal. When the bird spotted me with the car window wound down it flew back up to the nest box and just glared at me for interrupting the planned meal. Except for a number of Lapwing and 50+ Curlew there wasn’t much else on Moss Edge, there never is nowadays since the change in agricultural practice to silage and spring sowing. In the old days Moss Edge was THE place to see the early year wild geese, sometimes from the hay loft of a birder-friendly farmer’s barn as the geese picked over the remains of the previous year’s potato crop.
Having toured Moss Edge the main road back to Pilling alongside the wet fields was more bird friendly, but being biker mile/death row, a little too dangerous to stop apart from being able to pull into the junction of Gulf Lane. Along here I picked up 1 Merlin, 1 Kestrel, 30 Golden Plover, 900 Curlew, 14 Oystercatcher, 40 Dunlin, 300 Lapwing and 25 Redshank.
At Lane Ends the pools are now thawed with the result that 2 Tufted Duck have reappeared but not much else unless you count the Mallards of dubious origin. At least 20 Chaffinch here, 6+ Blackbirds, 2 Little Egret and 1 Cormorant.
Both Backsands Lane and Fluke Hall Lane proved bird productive, with a second Merlin, 2 more Kestrel, 300+ Lapwing, 18 Golden Plover, 95 Dunlin, 45 Redshank, 2 Snipe, 25 Oystercatcher, 10 Eurasian White-fronted Goose, 3 Skylark, 1 Pied Wagtail and 190 Shelduck. With 50+ additional Curlew it took todays count to over 1000 for the species. The light was poor again today, hence the ISO400 and resulting noise on the Curlew picture.
With more grey skies and breezes promised for tomorrow, I may take a day off, but you never know – stay tuned.
.jpg)
