Too Much Southerly

Here I go again complaining about the weather. It's either "too much", "too little" or the "wrong direction"! However, this morning at Rossall Point there was too much southerly in the westerly making it a south-southwesterly. I hope you followed that? The result of this 'too much southerly' was to make seabird passage virtually zero other than Sandwich Terns.

I had 110 Sandwich Terns go west this morning and probably three quarters of these were flying rapidly west just over the tide line and gave me the impression that they had been pushed off a roost somewhere by the rising tide. Knott End perhaps?

There were good numbers of Oystercatcher feeding on the shore and I counted 563 in total. Other waders included Knot, Grey Plover, Curlew, Dunlin, Redshank and Ringed Plover. The only other birds worth mentioning were 3 Common Scoters west.

It was on to Fleetwood Marsh Nature Park next and as I walked up to have a look on the main pool I had two Foxes playing together no more than 30 metres from me. Below is a poor record shot of the Foxes.

Out on the main pool were a number of wildfowl including 31 Coot, Wigeon, 3 Pochards, 32 Mallards, 3 Little Grebes, 13 Tufted Ducks and 2 Ruddy Ducks.

Walking to have a look on the 'tyre' pool I had a young Toad below on the path.

Out on the 'tyre' pool were a number of Pied Wags and I decided to 'scope them to count them. as I started to count them I noticed a female Yellow Wagtail amongst them and she was being continually mobbed and chased by a number of the Pied Wags. In total I had 42 Pied Wagtails.

A few Reed Buntings were also flitting through the reeds surrounding the pool and flying down to the pool to feed and I had 5 in total.

It was nice to see good numbers of Goldfinch and Linnets feeding around the pools and there were 72 and 27 of each respectively.

I walked across the meadows and down beside the edge of Fleetwood Marsh.

View over Fleetwood Marsh onto the Wyre
Estuary

As I walked along I flushed three Wheatears in front of me. They then flew and perch in the top of a small Willow before flying down on to the marsh. I always enjoy seeing Wheatears perched up in trees; they look so out of place. In the end it wasn't too bad a morning after a fairly slow start.

the forecast for tomorrow morning is for sunny intervals with a 17 mph southwesterly wind so I might try my look again at Rossall. I must be mad!