Friday 2 April 2010

White Wags

It was too windy for any ringing at Rossall School so a walk round the 'obs' was in order. It was cold with some ground frost and the wind was southeasterly 2-3. The first moving birds I had were 193 Pink-footed Geese heading north and they were closely followed by Goldfinches, Meadow Pipits and Linnets on vis. I recorded eight Goldfinches, 142 Meadow Ppits and eighteen Linnets.

I also had my first Lesser Redpoll ( I suppose it should be Redpoll sp. really) over for the spring and this was joined by a late Grey Wagtail and fourteen alba wags. On call I suspected that some of these albas were Whites, but birders allegedly better than me tell me that you can't separate them on call!!

Lesser Redpoll

No Barn Owl this morning but I did have a male and female Kestrel 'working' the fields. I had a quick look on the sea, but other than twelve male Eiders it was quiet. I then walked a little further along the coast but all I had for my efforts was a single female Stonechat.

I then moved on to the cemetery but it was very quiet with no grounded migrants. Linnets, Meadow Pipits, Chaffinches and my second Lesser Redpoll went over.

Foolishly I called at Fleetwood Marsh 'dog barking, dog shitting, wildlife disturbing, not' Nature Park on my way home. It was bedlam!! People shouting their dogs, dogs barking, dogs swimming in the pool and then one 'articulated rat' chasing Skylarks whilst the owner just watched! If the little b*stard of a pooch had come near me it would have been put into orbit via my boot!

A few Mipits continued to move north and I had two singing Skylarks plus three others. Out on the pools were 21 Coots, six Little Grebes, seven Tufted Ducks and a male Shoveler. As I walked along the edge of the saltmarsh I had two cracking male White Wagtails and a Chiffchaff sang from some scrub.

At the moment it's forecasting light rain for tomorrow which is just as well as I am off to see Bad Company tonight. Then again if there's half a chance for some birding I'll be out no matter how late I'm back tonight!

4 comments:

Lancashire and Lakeland Outback Adventure Wildlife Safaris said...

If you got those pinkies at about 6.30 then I seriously under-estimated them by about half! Also think you've nicked my record collection - say hi to BC for me helped shift some of their gear at uni x years ago.

Cheers

Dave

Ghost of Stringer said...

couldn't you identify the redpoll on call ?!!!

Unknown said...

The dog problem can be made to "go away" eventually. But it is a work of many, many years. The link is to my other ex-patch, the place I birded when I wasn't in the Fylde, and the header for postings at the beginning of April gives the good news.

http://www.chog.org.uk/Pages/Sightings.htm

This campaign to get dogs on leads started with the creation of the reserve in the 1960's!

The Hairy Birder said...

G, the ornithological powers that be in this neck of the woods won't let you identify redpolls on call, probably because of their own inadequacies!

John, thanks for the link to CHOG. Interesting stuff re dogs and Stanpit Marsh. Out of interest I've had some of my Sedge Warblers controlled at Christchurch Harbour in the past.

Cheers,

Seumus