On Ice

With any plans for ringing literally "on ice" there were two places on my keep moving itinerary this morning, a look at Lane Ends followed by a walk along Knott End promenade for the incoming midday tide.

I didn’t hang around at Lane Ends, where standing around for more than few minutes invited hypothermia, but walked the sea wall to Pilling Water then back to the car park on the lookout for just about anything that still survives the extreme weather. Whooper Swans this morning, about 140, then quick, rough counts of 550 Shelduck, 400 Teal, 180 Wigeon, 40 Lapwing, 25 Curlew and 15 or so Redshank. Of the small birds I still found 40 or more Skylarks and 5 Meadow Pipits braving the elements but nothing else save the Blackbirds, Robins and Dunnocks that survive around the car park.

It was a good bright morning and I thought I might have better luck with the tide and waders at Knott End where the ice and snow covered the beach, foreshore, the walkways and the jetty. It didn’t take long to find a good but not especially numerous selection of waders either roosting or feeding, but I was careful not to disturb them nor venture too far onto the treacherous icy surfaces.

Ringed Plover
Knot, Turnstone
Grey Plover, Redshank, Dunlin, Turnstone, Knot
Redshank
Turnstone
Knot
Redshank

For the record my counts were 30 Turnstone, 1 Grey Plover, 48 Redshank, 22 Knot, 14 Ringed Plover and 3 Oystercatcher.

A few Shelduck in amongst the ice floes sailed past the end of the jetty, as they looked for food at the tide edges.

Shelduck

Also along the foreshore were approximately 45 Twite and a single Rock Pipit.

Twite

I’d spent an hour or more taking pictures and I was pretty much frozen to the core so headed home for a hot drink and a sit down in the warmth, unlike the birds I’d just seen.

Angry

I spent a very frustrating couple of hours this morning at Rossall Point, Fleetwood. The idea of photographing autumn waders on the beach on a fine sunny morning seemed a good one at the time; the morning started out ok but it went downhill rapidly.

As I jumped out of the car I saw Swallows moving east into the wind, not just one or two, but dozens, then almost immediately 2 Swifts came low off the sea and also headed south east. Alongside the golf course I counted about 25 Meadow Pipits, not on the move but off passage feeding between the golf course fence and the rough grass of the fairway. Also along here I counted 4 Wheatears and logged the constant stream of Swallows west to east and the mouth of the Wyre, eventually more than 250, with at one point a Sparrowhawk for company.

Sparrowhawk
Wheatear
With a couple hours to high tide I turned my attention to the beach, and looked for a likely spot where I could merge behind one of the wooden groynes and as the tide rose, let the waders come to me.

The numbers built up as mainly 250 Ringed Plover, 400 Dunlin, 100 Sanderling and 10 or 12 Turnstones formed an ever bigger gang of hopefuls looking to rest at high tide. No chance. I am afraid that the good folk of Fleetwood seem to have absolutely nil respect for the wildlife that is on their doorstep, as one after another a procession of beachcombers, dog walkers and cyclists pushed the birds off their chosen resting places not once or twice, but dozens of times. Every time I settled down with the camera behind a groyne another grockle would appear behind me or off the top of the beach and send the poor birds off yet again.

The birds flew off over the incoming tide time after time and returned to a fresh spot only to find themselves moved off by in turn, a clown waving a bright yellow jacket, a plonker with a carrier bag trudging up and down then back along the beach, a gormless couple best described as “divis”, or a series of walkers throwing objects towards the tideline for their precious pooches, one of which was called “Sweetheart”. For f#*k’s sake woman, it’s a dog, a pet that’s all. Let’s face it; the problem is dog owners not the dogs themselves.

Maybe we will all be pleased to hear that Wyre Borough Council are to spend EU taxpayer’s money (that’s mine and yours) on a grandiose scheme for a café and information centre at the old Coastguard station here at Rossall Point. So that’s another waste of our money, more empire building, more overpaid, useless, fat arses failing to walk the talk. Because while the council like to present themselves as environmental heroes they do nothing to protect the birds here from constant harassment and some of their employees appear to have no real interest in wildlife, even less knowledge of it and apparently no desire to learn. The Rossall problem has been going on for as long as I can remember, with countless Ringed Plover nests lost over the years, but is now far worse bar the miracle of one successful pair this year. Surely the council could do something tangible and positive and put the horse before the cart by firstly spending our money on zoning and signing the beach, with clearly marked no go areas, and then use their army of overpaid litter picker/rangers to educate and inform people on the spot, but also to enforce currently ignored bye-laws, before they embark on a White Elephant that no one wants or needs?

I did get a few pictures but I am far from happy with them as everyone may have gathered. But are these birds worth protecting for the sake of upsetting a few doggie lovers and having some WBC employees do real work?

Ringed Plover
Dunlin
Turnstone
Sanderling

I think I might go to one of my more regular patches tomorrow.

Fleetwood Mac

I had an appointment in Fleetwood this morning so first nipped into a few of the well-worn birding spots. My first point of call was Rossall, most of which is actually part of Fleetwood, but I know from experience that some residents of the Rossall area consider they live in a more upmarket place than the very historic but perhaps not scenic port of Fleetwood. When asked, or in conversation they invariably say they live in Rossall. It’s comical really.

I set off towards Rossall Point just as a shower broke. Fortunately the coastguard tower was handy to hide in the lee of the burst, close against the wall so I didn’t get too wet.

Two Grey Seals popped out of the water, heading into the estuary or even the docks as they do occasionally. The sky brightened so heading west I scanned the shore. Wader numbers were thin with 1 Dunlin, 4 Turnstone and 3 Sanderling, their numbers swelled by 19 early returning Ringed Plover, and separate to them but between two other groynes, an adult performing a distraction display, but leading me in the direction I was already going. A fly past of 18 Dunlin and a single Whimbrel improved my counts. The Dunlin were all returning adults as we expect at this time of year. Carrion Crows hung about the beach and I couldn’t help but worry about the Ringed Plover chicks vulnerable to the corvid’s voracity and perseverance. But it’s not often a crow gets featured here,

Carrion Crow
Dunlin
Ringed Plover

The outgoing golfers disturbed four Sklarks from the fairway, whilst close to me Swallows were clearly on the move, not stopping and not many of them, but I counted 3 groups totalling 16 birds heading quickly south over the beach or above the dunes to then follow the River Wyre. Four Swifts low from the same direction as the Swallows also headed over the beach before disappearing in the same direction. Well it is almost August! 4 Pied Wagtails arrived on the beach but they too headed off towards the port. The tide was running in a little which probably helped the appearance of 6 Sandwich Terns, but the grey cloud didn’t help my photography today and the tide too low to concentrate the few waders.

I did my errand then made my way to Fleetwood Marsh Nature Park and parked up to watch a Song Thrush demolish a snail. It threatened rain again but on the pools were 42 Coot, 7 Tufted Duck and 9 Little Grebe including 3 fairly recent chicks, but all kept their distance as Little Grebes are wont to do. Waders on the “tyre pool” were 1 Lapwing, 2 Oystercatchers and a lone Black-tailed Godwit that stood around for a minute or two only before the large gulls came in from the docks to bathe and roost.

Song Thrush
Little Grebe
Little Grebe
Lesser Black-backed Gull

I counted 8 Swifts and 7 House Martins hawking over the “bridge pools” with 2 more Pied Wagtails and a Reed Warbler around the margins. I ventured towards the ringing area without exploring too deeply but on the passerine front I found 2 Sedge Warblers, 3 Reed Warblers, 2 Whitethroat, a Reed Bunting and 4 Skylarks.

Skylark

I didn’t get wet after all. The rain stayed away with no need for a Barbour or a Fleetwood Mac.

Wuw?

Wet, Unsettled and Windy, that’s what Heather said on BBC North West on Monday morning when she predicted the weather for this week.

So I went for a swim this morning fully expecting to be rained off birding pm. Wrong Heather, it was actually a pleasant afternoon with a balmy southerly wind and just the odd shower that at least kept me looking at the sky to later find my second Swallow of the year. At 1300 hours I hit the Pilling Lane/Lane Ends trail and saw lots of bits and pieces but no Wheatears. At and from the car park/pools I saw 1 Chiffchaff, 10 Meadow Pipit, 1 Reed Bunting, 2 Goldfinch, 2 Greenfinch and a Sparrowhawk again. Water birds came in at 3 Cormorant, 2 Gadwall, 8 Teal, 2 Goldeneye and the trilling Little Grebe that while very vocal, is actually difficult to see as it hides around the well vegetated margins of the west pool with partner and dives at the very hint of being looked at.

Gadwall
Meadow Pipit
Between Lane Ends and Pilling Water I counted 55 Shelduck, 4 Little Egret, 5 Ringed Plover, 130 Redshank and 2 Black-tailed Godwit, with only 250 Pink-footed Goose, a figure that left me wondering where the rest of them were. No worries as I found another 2,400 down at Braides Farm but I didn’t walk the track for fear of disturbing their feed or sending them all prematurely packing out to the marsh. I listened and watched from the gateway for a while but sadly saw only one Lapwing around the newly created but still dry ditches. There are a couple of Lapwings sat on eggs opposite Lane Ends entrance but I’m afraid the overall picture for the poor Lapwing doesn’t look too good again after a promising period a few weeks ago.

Ringed Plover
Lapwing
It still didn’t rain and the sun came out, the only cue I needed to try out Ridge Farm, walking along the sea wall and back through the farm track. It was quiet, with a few Linnets along the gorse, then fairly late in the afternoon a flight of about 60 Meadow Pipits heading east and a single Swallow, fairly high but heading all the while out over the bay.

I’ll see what tomorrow brings but I bet the weather isn’t as bad as predicted and if that southerly wind is still there overnight, I may find a job for those mealworms. You see, the BBC has got it wrong before and all the trees may not fall over during the night despite the Scottish blizzards I just watched on the news.

Happy Birding.

Twitter

No ringing for me this morning when no one else seemed available, so last night I looked forward to whatever came along. I didn’t set the alarm clock but let my natural rhythms take account of the increasing light of the spring which woke me before 0630. Not quite the 0330 start that a month or twos time promises but still a shock to the system after the long winter nights. Warm and snug under the duck down duvet did at least inspire me to think about where to go – Knott End to try and get a few pictures of the jetty loving Eider but also the regular flock of Twite. I emptied yet another can of de-icer on the car windscreen and set off.

Of course Twite twittered long before twittering became the latest and most imperative social function; after all, that’s how they came to be called Twite. I saw and heard the flock of 25, take one or two, twittering away from the roof of a block of flats where they go when disturbed by bird watchers, photographers and uncontrolled dogs. They twittered from the ridge tiles, twittered when they flew down, twittered as they fed on the marsh, then twittered all over again when they went for a fly around. And I got a few pictures even though the light was pretty poor, but I need to go back when it’s sunny.

Twite

Twite
As I hung around the jetty I think the ferry man set off from Fleetwood for my fare but then seemingly then turned around mid stream when I walked in the other direction. Hope I didn’t wreck his early brew, but my mission was more important than his first cup of tea. The tide rolled in slowly to allow my counts of 1200 Oystercatcher, 15 Turnstone, 18 Redshank, 1 Ringed Plover, 55 Knot, 2 Cormorant, 65 Shelduck, 5 Eider, 2 Pied Wagtails and 1 Meadow Pipit. The Eider were not very accommodating, waddling off into the water instead of sitting watching the world go by from the jetty end as they usually do.


Eider

Knot

Knot

Ringed Plover

Turnstone

Pied Wagtail
It’s a shocking forecast for Sunday and whilst it looks like the south of England will bear the brunt of rain, I don’t see us northerners getting out either. Then on Monday I’m off to ditch the old Honda and trade it in for another product from The Land of the Rising Sun which will at least allow me to go Lancaster way incognito for a while until PW susses me out. Tuesday is babysitting so that’s me thwarted for a day or two.

But it’s only two weeks before we see one of these fellas to cheer us up.

Picture courtesy of Bjorn Torrisen at
http://bjornfree.com/galleries.html

Wheatear

Various Bits

It was a pretty poor decision last night to give ringing a miss after being led astray by the BBC’s poor forecasting again. But at 0730 with a light southerly blowing it was already too late to go and start putting nets up, but at least they had promised some sunshine for birding and I had unfinished business at Rossall.

It was pretty murky near the point where I found Seumus and Ian “vis migging” and sea watching, eyes and ears concentrating on the above and beyond but fighting a light mist with a poor excuse for a sun making no inroads into improving the visibility.

I found the Stonechats behind the tower and spent some minutes trying to get decent photographs as they insisted on staying on the wrong side of what light there was. I could have tried taking a shot from the golf course but it’s a fairly dangerous spot anyway, without standing on a direct line from a tee shot, especially early on a Saturday morning following the Friday night nineteenth hole.

It didn’t take me long to give up this particular effort, but I promised myself another go when the sun came out.



There weren’t many waders on the beach today, perhaps just as a result of the slightly higher tide, so I struggled to find enough to photograph but at least today there were twenty or so Ringed Plovers amongst the Turnstone.





As usual the Oystercatcher come and go from the tide line according to their strict unwavering rule that dictates how near anyone can get; they seem to vary this rule for people with dogs, and fly off even earlier. So after a few attempts I got a few shots but a red eye on a black bird is difficult to catch without direct sun.



Not long after I turned near home just as the sun emerged.

I spent the afternoon experimenting with the slide copier as several hundred slides collected over the years emerged from a long forgotten black plastic case. It’s funny but I remember those slides being far better than they looked today, poor focus, badly composed, shocking exposure, tiny peas on a far off drum many of them. Time hadn’t helped either with a hint of yellowing on some with buckled cardboard surrounds on others. Only one thing to do for many of them, sorry chaps.



But I found a few that transferred to the digital age with a score of 2/10, and at least it’s a bit of back up for blog non-photo days. So to kick off here’s a competition along the lines of “mystery bird” but only for anyone that doesn’t know me. I pulled this bird from a mist net several years ago in Britain. What is it? Answers next time.

A Full Page

I ended up with an almost full page in my notebook today. Nothing extraordinary as I might expect by visiting the usual spots, but it was just a good variety of birds, some nice totals, whilst enjoying a very pleasant morning in reasonable weather. Anyway it’s no good just sitting in reading the blogs and web pages, it’s much better to go out and actually do it?

First port of call Conder Green. Maybe it’s about due to turn up something a bit out of the ordinary again. Very occasionally I just stumble across rarities, and at Conder Green only in the month of July every 20 years – White–rumped Sandpiper in July 1984 and Pectoral Sandpiper in July 2004. The “pec” was really strange because the morning I tripped over the Pectoral Sandpiper was the day after I finished “work” as a civil servant and the beginning of my new career as a full time birder/layabout. Roll on July 2024. In the meantime I did find something of a rarity today, more of that later.

The pool and creek were as deceptively quiet as ever but with a little looking, a tiny bit of patience I found: 2 Little Grebe, 2 Greenshank, 1 Kingfisher, 2 Common Sandpiper, 2 Grey Heron, 1 Cormorant and 11 Teal. Passerine wise I saw PW’s flock of Goldfinch in the centre of the marsh, but they later split off to leave about 40 here and the remaining 300 or so flying over the working areas of Glasson Dock then out towards the marsh. I walked over the footbridge where I saw and heard a fruity Chiffchaff in the immediate bushes, then some distance out on the marsh, a Merlin sat upright on a piece of debris. A single Grey Wagtail flew calling overhead in the direction of the pool I had just left. In the creek below an additional 5 Greenshank stayed together as the tide ran in slowly around them. I did manage to get a photo of a Redshank, just the most easily spooked species ever.



A quick count at Glasson gave me 14 Tufted Duck 14, 52 Coot and 8 Great Crested Grebe, together with the aforesaid Goldfinch.

“Good” I said, as looking from the road up to Cockersands, the track over the beach appeared deserted; it was only as I turned the corner below the cottage that I saw it wasn’t. A lunatic with a household axe was very slowly, but systematically destroying and loading into his car and trailer the remains of a large tree that had lain on the beach for months. When he nodded “good morning” to me I pretended not to notice but kept a safe distance away. Me, I think I would spend a few quid to buy some firewood then go birding.



Whilst the noise echoed around the estuary I made my way to Plover Scar where I took a shot of what appeared to be a slightly sick Ringed Plover then counted the following: Oystercatcher 1100, Ringed Plover 7, Redshank 195, Wheatear 2, Meadow Pipit 6, Linnet 11.



The Mad Axeman was still there when I retraced my steps so I made my way to Jeremy Lane.

It was here that I found that local rarity Grey Partridge, a “covey” of 4, if four still constitutes a covey. They stood nervously waiting to enter a field full of Black-headed Gulls who were probably more preoccupied in robbing about 700 Lapwing and 120 or so Golden Plover of their food items to notice a few Grey Partridge. They did go in the field eventually but quickly disappeared out of sight below the hedgerow.



Nearly the end then, just time for a stop at Lane Ends to see a couple of Little Egret, 2 Wheatear and a Grey Wagtail.

Pilling Water wasn’t on the cards today as this was the first shoot of the season in the adjacent fields and outer marsh. But from Lane Ends car park I could see many of the released duck meet an untimely end as the sportsmen forced them to fly up from their nursery and over the guns.

Sitting in the sun

Firstly, fulsome apologies for the punctuation mistakes in my last post. What with “HTML”, “Compose”, “Edit”, “Publish” etc, not to mention the cutting and pasting, it is a miracle there were any words on the page. I am of the generation that learnt by rote the twelve times table and the intricacies of full stops, commas and the wonders of s’, ‘s, and even s’s, therefore there is really no excuse is there? Nowadays many people don’t bother with punctuation, spelling or grammar. I heard it is possible to take a GCSE in mobile ‘phone texting? Or maybe it is one of the Daily Mail’s stories I picked up while scrutinizing the Co-op’s newspaper section as I waited an hour or two for Sue queuing at the their checkout.

Bird wise today was better. I spent a pleasant hour or two watching the tide roll over Preesall sands with the sun and a warm breeze on my back. Swallows were on the move if not in staggering numbers then upwards of a hundred came flying low, feeding over the sands, then headed over the wall, general direction due south.

Today the Oystercatchers headed east towards the Fluke roost and I counted more than 2850 fly that way before I left. Mixed groups of Dunlin and Ringed Plover dashed about, the Dunlin outnumbering the plovers about five to one. So if I counted 250 Dunlin, using simple division and your 5 x table, I’m sure you can work out the rest. A few dozen or so Golden Plover tried to hide amongst the 300 Lapwing, unlike the two score plus Grey Plover that eventually joined some resting Oystercatcher. The rising tide flushed a handful of Snipe and feeding Starling from the green marsh.

The filling tide also brought in about 70 Sandwich Terns from the west and they too mostly went towards the higher marsh at Fluke Hall.

I later joined Chris further along the wall who had relocated his regular Yellow–legged Gull amongst the usual mob of gulls, and just then a small Sparrowhawk came from the Fluke direction flushing gulls, waders and passerines, revealing up to 50 Linnets and a couple of Goldfinch that otherwise fed unobtrusively among the marsh debris.

Later in the day I bumped along the moss lanes to a farm to ring Barn Owls. A bit late in the season I know as by now we all look forward to autumn migration, tending to think of the breeding season as ended, but there they were, two young Barn Owls in the box.



Naturally any Barn Owls I or my colleagues check, ring or photograph are covered by the necessary Schedule 1 permits. In fact, were we to “mess” with Schedule 1 species lacking the correct permissions and paperwork, in contravention of the law and disregarding the bird welfare that the Schedule 1 system offers, we would get a well deserved “rocket” from the BTO and possibly endanger our Ringing Permits as a whole.

It’s very distressing to hear of the bad behaviour of inexperienced, uncaring or those bird watchers who choose to ignore the law designed to protect birds, whether near Manchester or nearer to home in the Fylde. Perhaps if their frenzied obsession was directed initially towards a real interest in and study of birds rather than collecting ticks, listing and twitching we could later expect a better understanding of such real issues? In the meantime perhaps those shown or known to be involved in inappropriate behaviour should be named, shamed and where possible, prosecuted?