Saturday Afternoon, Sunday Morning.

On Saturday afternoon the sea was flat calm at Knott End, the sun so bright the water so tranquil that out there hundreds of yards away I could see a Great Crested Grebe, 18+ Shelduck, 14 Eider and 3 Scaup, the latter being 2 males and a female; the female took a brief flight and even at that distance the blaze above her bill showed clear and bright. Looking on other websites I see that at a similar time the Scaup were noted off Rossall Point, Fleetwood. 

The sea was incredibly smooth as can be seen in the picture below which shows passengers disembarking from the Fleetwood to Knott End ferry. It is no surprise then that on flat tides the same birds can often be seen from both sides of the estuary as they drift on incoming and outgoing tides. 

Greater Scaup - Photo credit: milesizz / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND 

Knott End to Fleetwood Ferry

The Scaup, (Aythya marila) is better known in North America as Greater Scaup, that continent also blessed with the similar Lesser Scaup (Aythya affinis). Because in the UK there is only the one scaup species, most birders drop the “Greater” and simply call the bird Scaup. 

Oystercatcher, Turnstone, Knot and Redshank are dependable at Knott End and I had counts of 1900 Oystercatcher, 80 Knot, 22 Turnstone, 65 Sanderling and 75 Redshank. Also 1 Meadow Pipit and 2 Pied Wagtail. 

Sanderling

 

I rose early on Sunday. I was up and running so quick that I decided to detour over the moss and perhaps see a morning Barn Owl. No luck there, just a Kestrel in the half light and a scarce Mistle Thrush along Union Lane. At Cockerham I found my Barn Owl sat on a roadside post, but the car’s oncoming headlights spooked the bird away and over towards its barn. Not to worry, the owl made for a good start to a bird filled morning. 

I wasn’t having much luck with the camera at Conder Green when the Kingfisher didn’t want to know and the 16 Wigeon, 6 Little Grebe, 5 Goldeneye, 6 Tufted Duck and 2 Little Egret all stayed on the far side of the pool. Still 2 Spotted Redshank and 150+ Teal in the creeks. A Robin popped up on the screen to sympathise with my pathetic photography efforts but still I couldn’t get a decent portrait. 

Black-headed Gull

Robin

Maybe I’d have better luck at Pilling? At Backsands Lane were tremendous numbers of geese spread across the pasture, probably in excess of 5000 birds.

The geese seemed remarkably tolerant this morning and although they did their usual “walkaway” when a vehicle, cyclist or passer-by showed signs of stopping, mostly the birds remained in the field for a good few hours. At one point a dog walker passed within 75 yards of the nearest geese, most with heads raised from feeding but the whole lot staying put. The telephoto lens foreshortens the picture but the geese behaviour was most unusual in this the depths of the shooting season.

 Pink-footed Geese

The only interloper I could find in the pinkies was a single Barnacle Goose, and while I can’t claim to have seen every single one of 5000+ geese, I did spend a good hour looking through them.

Barnacle Goose and Pink-footed Geese

A quick dodge around the stubble fields and the inland ditch revealed 145 Lapwing, 45 Black-tailed Godwit, 2 Snipe, 32 Redshank, 1 Green Sandpiper, 32 Whooper Swan, 4 Reed Bunting and 3 Meadow Pipit. In the wood, 1 Sparrowhawk and a single Jay.

Whooper Swan

Then it was time for home. What a cracking morning of birding.

Linking today to  Stewart's Bird Gallery .

Friday Flight

I was on my way north but decided to stop off at Lane Ends when I saw lots of Pink-footed Geese coming off the marsh from their night time roost and dropping for breakfast in the nearest field. It was the closest field but also a large one, the wary geese sticking close to the furthest fence from the road where noone would trouble them. The geese didn’t so much as drop in but glide down, treating me to a superb display of synchronised landing into the wind, wings bowed at the appropriate angle with tail and feet applying the brakes for a perfect landing. 

 Pink-footed Geese

 Pink-footed Goose

Pink-footed Goose

Geese were constantly arriving and leaving in small groups, staying to feed or heading off inland for pastures new. In all I estimated 1800 birds on the field before the first person on foot along the lane sent the geese off in noisy flight. Click on xeno-canto to hear the geese panicking off.

At Conder Green two Spotted Redshank still explored the channel, while on the pool Little Grebe numbers have fallen to just 3, Wigeon increased to 12 and Tufted Duck to 3. I struggled to find much else and even the dependable Teal numbers have declined to 120+.

It was an icy cold morning but at Glasson I found an angler, head in his chest and fast asleep in a chair at the side of the dock. Maybe he’d been there all night as anglers often do, but there didn’t seem to be a layer of frost so I left him in his slumber and counted the wildfowl, many of them sleeping head down too - 80+ Tufted Duck, 42 Coot, 1 Scaup and 1 Pochard.

 Scaup - Courtesy of The Crossley ID Guide: Britain & Ireland

I hope a blog reader was a winner of the recent Princeton University Press competition for a signed copy of The Crossley ID Guide: Britain & Ireland. See who won here at Another Bird Blog .

I decided to head back to Lane Ends to check out the stubble field - still consistent with 90+ Black-tailed Godwit, 220 Lapwing, 200 Jackdaws, 40 Carrion Crow, 25 Redshank, 3 Snipe, 8 Curlew, 2 Golden Plover, 70+ Skylark and then 2 Reed Buntings in the spent maize.

Carrion Crows chased a Buzzard out of the plantation at Pilling Water and as I walked back to Fluke the crows had found a Peregrine to chase as well; they don’t miss much those crows.

Buzzard

At Fluke itself, a Jay in the trees and several Tree Sparrows along the hedgerow.

There's more soon from Another Bird Blog, stay tuned. In the meantime I'm linking to Camera Critters and I'd Rather Be Birding.