“A” Good Day

These fine mornings are too good to waste, especially since we are promised a day or two of downpours next; so I set off early to make hay and visit a few regular birding spots. 

Morning Has Broken 

Swallows have been fidgety all week with small gangs of them along roadside wires and others more obviously moving south during the day. As I drove along Head Dyke Lane through Stalmine and Pilling I noted several groups of roadside Swallows, one of which numbered 100+ birds close to a likely looking roosting site. 

At Glasson Dock I found more than 30 Swallows feeding around the moored boats and over the yacht basin. While not a huge count it was more than I’ve seen there all year with my own observations suggesting that some Swallow pairs have managed to produce just one brood of chicks this year. 

 Swallow

Today the first signs of an increase in Coots with a count of 18 although Tufted Ducks remain at a handful. There was the usual Grey Heron fishing from the jetty and a Cormorant diving nearby but both fly off towards the estuary at the first signs of human activity. A couple of Pied Wagtails fed around the lock gates together with a handful of Goldfinches and the regular Collared Doves. 

I walked part of the old railway path and picked up on a dozen or so flighty Goldfinches, 2 Whitethroats and 2 Willow Warblers, the warblers being the first for a good number of days if not weeks of the species’ absence during our lost summer. 

Whitethroat

At Conder Green I glimpsed the Kingfisher in a fly past before seeing the standard wading fare of 160 Redshank, 90 Lapwing, 4 Common Sandpiper, 3 Snipe, 1 Greenshank and 3 Little Egret. Ducks and grebes etc - 3 Little Grebe, 4 Teal, 2 Shelduck, 1 Tufted Duck and 1 Wigeon. 

The Wigeon, in theory a winter visitor, has been around the pool throughout the summer and is perhaps missing the company of its own species by the way it trails in the wake of the local Mallards. It does though remain very wild and difficult to photograph at close quarters. 

Wigeon

On my way to Fluke Hall I called at Lane Ends, Pilling to have 5 Little Egrets, 1 Little Grebe and 1 Sparrowhawk. At Fluke Hall there was a Jay in the woodland together with 2 Buzzard, while along the hedgerows I found a Whitethroat and a Willow Warbler and then towards Ridge Farm a single Corn Bunting. 

This once abundant and common farmland species, and as advised a number of times on this blog, now clings to existence by a single thread in this part of coastal Lancashire. This area once grew crops which people could eat - carrots, potatoes and all manner of vegetables, and where the left over winter stubble would feed Corn Buntings, Yellowhammers and finches galore. Nowadays the same fields are crammed with cattle and sheep. Our bellies are full of meat but the birds have gone for ever. 

Corn Bunting

I spent a while enjoying the sunshine at Knott End and saw 100+ Sandwich Tern, 1400 Oystercatcher, 130 Dunlin, 28 Bar-tailed Godwit, 3 Grey Heron, 30+ Swallows on the move, and a couple of Eider duck floating on the flat iron sea. 

Now wasn’t that a good day’s birding? 

Knott End, Lancashire

By the way, did you know that Google has renamed itself Alphabet? But if you do a search tomorrow you will still find Another Bird Blog listed under “A”.

Linking today to Anni and Eileen's Saturday Blog.