Sarnies and Barwits

Rossall Point again this morning and well, I'm not going to moan about the wind as it was better than yesterday but still there weren't the birds about. The wind was southwesterly 20 mph, but if I was being picky I would have preferred it to be a west-southwesterly. Perhaps I am looking for an excuse for a lack of birds.

In the half light in the field next to the car park 47 Black-headed Gulls were feeding. A quick scan through them revealed no Meds, but you have to check. On to the Coastguards Tower and the first birds I had were Sandwich Terns and these were birds that had been roosting on the beach at Rossall as opposed to Knott End as I could see birds lifting as the tide ran in.


The pattern was similar to that of yesterday with birds getting up from the beach and a passage out at sea. In total I had 238 birds. I had a number of Cormorants and they looked as if they were on the move as the majority of the birds headed west, with very few birds coming from the west and heading east. I had 51 and out of this 42 headed west. The only sea bird I had was a single Gannet that flew into the Bay.

Dodgy Sanderling pic

There were a few more waders around this morning apart from Oycs. Oycs only numbered 390 compared with the 563 I had yesterday. I had 19 Dunlin, 665 Knot and 17 Grey Plovers.

There was a hint of some vis mig this morning even though it was quite windy as a few Mipits went over with a handful of Swallows and 3 Grey Wagtails.

On my way to Fleetwood Marsh Nature Park I diverted to the Marine Lakes. Roosting on one of the concrete piers were a flock of 60 Turnstone with 6 Redshank.

When I got out of my car at the Nature Park I noticed that the overnight rain had filled the 'tyre' pool up a bit more and it looked quite attractive to waders. I lifted my bins up and a quick scan revealed 4 Barwits.
Okay theye aren't rare, but they weren't there yesterday and that's what makes patch watching so magic. The flock of 40 Goldfinch were still motoring around bits of vegetation surrounding the car park and the Pied Wagtails on the pool had increased to 60, but no Yellow Wags or even Citrine Wags. Sorry, just dreaming there.

Some of the wildfowl had incrased in numbers and I had 38 Coots, 16 Tufted Ducks, 3 Pochards and the 2 female/immature Ruddy Ducks.

Not a brilliant couple of hours before work, but not a bad few hours either. I can't get out tomorrow so it will be Thursday morning before I am out again. See you then.