Slowly Does It

The ringing squad aka The Old Crocks could not make it this time. Too much beer/wine, baby sitting and/or too many aches & pains left me alone to seek birds. Better luck Friday when we hope to tackle the Cockerham Sand Martin colony for the first time this year. 

A sunny morning beckoned as I set off north along the notorious A588 through Stalmine, Pilling and Cockerham, FY, PR and LA respectively, not as far apart as those differing post codes might imply. The tortuous road is less dangerous since at great cost and much protest from late-to-work boy racers a large number of average speed cameras made everyone slow down; we are told the bright yellow devices work in the dark, can detect drivers using mobile phones and record a driver’s eye colour. 

A little late but 1984 is definitely here with Tory Boy followed seamlessly on by Starmergeddon; more taxation and then The Magic Money Tree to stoke inflation. More surveillance, nanny statism and nationalised services about to make everything worse. Wait until 80,000 new windmills sit proudly across every rural constituency in the cause of Joke Zero. What a coalition that will create - anarchists, useful idiots and environmental swampies, as middle class retirees fight for their property value with lumps of newly laid concrete. Sit back with the popcorn and enjoy the show. Only five years to go. 

Mind you, the A road is still dicing with death as I found out when slowing to an almost stop at double white lines and then a sharp bend at the sight of Barn Owls, first at Pilling and then at Cockerham. Some fool almost took my door mirror off! Hanging around for more pics was definitely dodgy so luckily the blog archive of circa 90/100 Barn Owls pics saved the day. 

Barn Owl

After a slow start with flooded fields and dykes in early 2024 it’s clear that the local and ever adaptable Barn Owls are now feeding young in a number of scattered locations. 

Barn Owl

A flash, a putative pool, some 60/70 yards distant at Cockerham held three brown Shoveler ducks, the species now quite scarce, distinctly wary & unfriendly to those bearing a camera (or a gun). Some weeks ago I saw the male alone on a different flash of water from where he flew in the direction of this latest sighting, thus making a record of likely breeding for this overlooked species. 

Shovelers

Shoveler

Nearby were a couple of Golden Plover, a colourful adult and a spangled individual; a rather unusual time of year but a species which may still breed on high ground inland not  too many miles away in the Pennine Hills. 

Golden Plover

Golden Plover

Lapwings are beginning their autumn gatherings with 40/60 on Conder Pool, the once peaceful area of water loved by birders, now transformed by experts and renamed Gull Hell in homage to the several hundred Black-headed Gulls that now call it home. 

To be fair the gulls give protection to a number of Common Terns that nest on rafts where no raptor worth its salt would want an onslaught of hundreds of Black-headed Gulls.  

Common Tern

We gained a cacophony of noise - gulls, terns and Avocets while losing breeding Lapwings, Redshank and Tufted Duck but left Oystercatchers hanging by a thread. Such is progress. 

Oystercatcher

 

I drove to a quiet spot and took a few pictures of common birds in the bright light of morning. 

Linnet

Woodpigeon

Reed Bunting

Pied Wagtail

The forecast looks good for Friday and Sand Martins. Take a look soon and see how The Old Crocks performed. It may not be pretty or at a fast pace but we try hard. 

Click Bait

OK, due to a combination of factors I have somewhat neglected posting on the blog. That doesn’t mean that I have been sat at home twiddling my thumbs or watching daytime telly. Does anyone still watch daytime telly to be entertained or informed? Definitely not the latter. Sources of news and entertainment on the Internet are more varied where by hitting the right buttons, the actuality & truth, as opposed to mainstream media who like to tell us what to believe, is there for all to discover. BBC, ITV, C4, Sky – they are all liars with biased and well-oiled axes to grind. 

Today there's a selection of pictures shot in-between bouts of bad weather that hit the North West from January and into May when I ventured out with bins and camera if the sun appeared and winds subsided. I felt so sorry for our local farming community when days and weeks of rain swallowed their crop fields; more knocks to a hard-working fraternity who receive little or no credit for their contribution to our British Way of Life. 

My mostly mornings with camera, plus a couple of ringing sessions confirmed that all is not well with birds. Where this year are Swifts, Sedge Warblers, Blackcaps, Swallows, Whitethroats, House Martins and Willow Warblers? - to name but a handful of supposedly “common species”. Luckily, Wheatears and ever curious Pied Wagtails  seemed in good supply with the jury out on seemingly low numbers of finches and buntings.

Adult Swallow

Whitethroat

Sedge Warbler

Wheatear

Pied Wagtail

Linnet

Reed Bunting

Pied  Wagtail - looking for the other one 

While saturated fields held no joy for farmers, a few waders took advantage by managing to rear chicks on fields into which a tractor would sink. Out Cockerham way a pair of roadside Lapwings I watched for weeks managed to grow all four chicks to adult size. All the time with crows looking on but chased off by sharp eyed parent Lapwings.

Lapwing

Lapwing chick

Carrion Crow

At another field nearby a pair of Shoveler took up residence where a male left his mate in an adjacent ditch while he stole minutes alone at a water flash. . 

Shoveler

Finally and into June the ground in parts dried out by which time both Oystercatchers and Lapwings could search the recently ploughed and now drying clumps of earth.

Oystercatcher

Male Lapwing - dig that crest!

And then in late June for a week and a day Sue and I ate out in the garden, enjoying the evening sunlight. A chance to try our own versions of Greek classics, Lamb Kleftico, Baked Feta and souvlakis together with a bottle of Ampelicious that too quickly ran out, the bottle courtesy of our lovely friends, Family Karaboula at Maistrali. 

 

Maistrali Taverna, Skiathos, Greece 

Ampelicious  Red

Bouyiourdi - Baked Feta

The first week of July. There's more rain in the forecast but I will be out whenever I can. 

Did you click the pics to receive the correct message and see the full picture? 

Thank You.  Another Bird Blog is back soon.

Rain Day

With the UK under severe lockdown there is no bird ringing allowed unless in one's own garden.  With vehicle travel limited to “essential” and “local journeys” only, it's unlikely I will be able to do much birding or even to get out with a camera.  Add to that 24 hours of rain with more to come today and I'm indoors for a while.

But, keep logging in for news and views. I'll do my best to find news and views to share. 

Meanwhile here's a post to link up with my friend Rain Frances over in New Brunswick and her Thursday Art theme of  Birds and the Sky -  http://www.rainfrances.com/2021/01/thursday-art-date-birds-and-sky.html  

I thought this might prove a difficult one because although the sky is there in many of my bird photos, it is there mostly as a backdrop to the bird or birds. 

So I looked through my photo archive for photos to find some that would satisfy the criteria of Birds and the Sky. Here we go Rain and readers - hope you like my selection of Birds and the Sky, sometimes combined.  I didn't realise there were so many until searching the hard drive. 

Blue, grey, white, cloudy, dark, light, red, and black from all around the world. Some with birds some not.  In no particular order. For best results click on the picture.

Swallows against the morning Sky - Glasson, Lancashire

Sepia Sky - Pilling,Lancashire

Rain on the way Sky - Fleetwood, Lancashire

Goose Sky - Pilling, Lancashire

Morning Sky trails - Rawcliffe, Lancashire

Bee Eater Sky - Menorca, Spain

Black Sky at night - Lanzarote, Spain

Cattle Egret - White on Blue Sky

Blue Sky over Sand - Fuerteventura, Spain 

Pintail ducks - Action Sky

Red Sky - Menorca, Spain

Grey Sky, Grey Day- Menorca, Spain

Tourists in the Sky - Greece

Cloudy Sky - Lanzarote

Rainbow Sky - Pilling, Lancashire

Lapwing Sky

Coloured Sky - Pilling, Lancashire

Big Sky - Lanzarote, Spain

Orange Sky - Knott End, Lancashire

Moody Sky - Rawcliffe, Lancashire

Hitchcock Sky - Pilling, Lancashire

Egyptian Sky - Makadi Bay, Egypt

Another Big Sky,  Lanzarote, Spain

Northern Shovelers Sky

Photos via Canon, Sigma and Sony. 

Now if I just had £17,000 I could update my gear to the latest Sony A7R 1V camera with a Sony FE 600mm F/4 Lens and a Sony FE 24-70mm F2.8 Lens. 

How did I do with the post Rain?

Linking on Saturday 16 January to Viewing Nature With Eileen and also birding in Texas with Anni I'd Rather Be Birding.