Today I’m struggling to post anything except a letter through a doorway. Even that could get blown from my hands.
After a morning swim I hoped the overnight and morning gusts would drop for me by afternoon but they didn’t. The wind was really potent here today, too strong really for passerine birding but I thought I would go out to look for a few Wheatears out Pilling Way on the basis of a good count of more than 70 Wheatears on Bardsey Island on Monday 19th April. Bardsey Blog.
For anyone unsure of the geography up here, Bardsey is just off the tip of the Llleyn peninsula, North Wales, approximately 170 miles by road to the southern part of Morecambe Bay. To a Wheatear, especially a fuelled up specimen, it’s but a short flight from Bardsey or North Wales to any part of Morecambe Bay and a quick top up of food before the next leg of their journey. That’s not to say that any Wheatears I might find would definitely be part of the Welsh contingent, but they may have been. Equally Wheatears have been rather held up lately by the constant northerly winds and there must be many more heading this way quite soon.
Wheatear
Bardsey Island and Morecambe Bay
My walk along the Pilling wall in the north westerly proved difficult and uneventful, so hard that the best birding option was to walk behind the grassy wall out of the wind but not so to speak, stick your head over the parapet for fear of being blown back below.
There were at least 8 Wheatears, mobile, fence hopping specimens hard to study through binoculars shaking in the blustery wind. Needless to say with being so active they weren’t tempted by meal worms but quickly continued their part journey in an easterly direction.
A quick count around the Lane Ends pools revealed 6 Tufted Duck and several Swallows plus 2 Sand Martins hawking over the windswept pools.
Back home I did notice both Swallows and House Martins in our cul-de-sac inspecting last year’s sites.
Swallow and House Martin
Swallow
Swallow
Sorry folks, that’s all my news for today.
After a morning swim I hoped the overnight and morning gusts would drop for me by afternoon but they didn’t. The wind was really potent here today, too strong really for passerine birding but I thought I would go out to look for a few Wheatears out Pilling Way on the basis of a good count of more than 70 Wheatears on Bardsey Island on Monday 19th April. Bardsey Blog.
For anyone unsure of the geography up here, Bardsey is just off the tip of the Llleyn peninsula, North Wales, approximately 170 miles by road to the southern part of Morecambe Bay. To a Wheatear, especially a fuelled up specimen, it’s but a short flight from Bardsey or North Wales to any part of Morecambe Bay and a quick top up of food before the next leg of their journey. That’s not to say that any Wheatears I might find would definitely be part of the Welsh contingent, but they may have been. Equally Wheatears have been rather held up lately by the constant northerly winds and there must be many more heading this way quite soon.
My walk along the Pilling wall in the north westerly proved difficult and uneventful, so hard that the best birding option was to walk behind the grassy wall out of the wind but not so to speak, stick your head over the parapet for fear of being blown back below.
There were at least 8 Wheatears, mobile, fence hopping specimens hard to study through binoculars shaking in the blustery wind. Needless to say with being so active they weren’t tempted by meal worms but quickly continued their part journey in an easterly direction.
A quick count around the Lane Ends pools revealed 6 Tufted Duck and several Swallows plus 2 Sand Martins hawking over the windswept pools.
Back home I did notice both Swallows and House Martins in our cul-de-sac inspecting last year’s sites.
Sorry folks, that’s all my news for today.
