I was back home at 10am after rained off after just a couple of hours of birding. Despite the curtailed session I managed to clock up a couple of “goodies” but nothing to compete with the Siberian Accentor that turned up on the east coast and where several hundred, possibly thousands of birders and others are expected to flock this weekend ("2000 viewers filed past on 13thOctober").
A week or so ago when we when catching Linnets a shooter mentioned that he’d seen a Great White Egret out on the marsh. A day or so later I’d seen almost 30 Little Egrets on the marsh just out from the plantation where many egrets spend the night hours. I guess it was those two bits of information in my head this morning that made me turn off the road in the half-light of dawn to check out just how many egrets are currently using the site.
The egrets were beginning to wake up. Their barking calls rang out from the trees and I’d counted 70+ scattered across the treetops when a whole gang of them erupted into flight. There was a big one amongst the Little Egrets, a Great White Egret which circled a little before heading along the sea wall towards Cockerham. A great-white is half as big again as a Little Egret with a bill shape that resembles a dagger rather than the stiletto of a Little Egret. For such a large and apparently conspicuous bird a great-white has the ability to “disappear” from prying eyes: I suspect that this particular one spends its days in the deep, tide-washed creeks of Pilling and Cockerham marsh.
Great White Egret by cuatrok77 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
I stopped off at the set-aside plot where I added a little ground feed of millet and Niger to the natural seeds on offer in the expectation that a few Twite and more Tree Sparrows will join Linnets in the daily feast. A flock of 50+ Linnets were around the area together with a number of Tree Sparrows in the bushes near the farm.
Linnet
Twite
The grey morning and 100% cloud cover didn’t bode well for visible migration so I wasn’t surprised to see little in the way of recent arrivals at Conder Green. A rather noisy Chiffchaff, several “pinking” Chaffinches and a dozen or so Blackbirds proved the best from both here and following a look in Glasson churchyard.
On the pool and in the creeks – 110 Lapwings, 55 Teal, 15 Redshank, 11 Little Grebe, 6 Snipe, 4 Wigeon, 2 Shelduck, 2 Little Egret and 1 Green Sandpiper.
The Green Sandpiper spent all of its time searching for food through the rocks, pebbles and vegetation an island some 70/90 yards away. Best I could do below. It's there - honest!
Green Sandpiper
Apologies for the somewhat short post today but I’ll try harder next time on Another Bird Blog.
Linking today to Anni's blog.
Linking today to Anni's blog.
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