A Nice End to the Day

I often moan about how work gets in the way of birding and then I always think that actually I am quite lucky in what I do. Today was a classic example. All day I kept getting reports of a Sabines Gull here and a Leach's there, and I wished I was seawatching at Rossall and connecting with these birds. I was out on some farmland in Merseyside surveying a farm for Higher Level Stewardship. I was looking at a piece of lowland raised bog, which is a UK BAP habitat, and as a habitat it is very scarce. Look at the picture below and you can see that the water table needs lifting to kill off the scrub and that is what we'll attempt through the scheme.

 
I was seeing Yellowhammers and Reed Buntings, watching a party of Long-tailed Tits, listening to a Willow Warbler calling and watching Swallows hawking low flying insects under the trees in the rain, so it wasn't all bad!

At lunchtime I got a phone call from Ian to say that there was a summer plumaged Red-throated Diver on the Marine Lakes. I decided that I would call on my way home. As I was close to the Marine Lakes Ian phoned again to say that there was a Manx Shearwater on one of the other lakes as well! What a nice end to the day. My camera was playing up, so even though both birds were close I struggled to get some decent shots as you will see below. Keep your eye on Another Bird Blog as I am sure Phil will have some pictures of the Manxie on his blog soon, taken with a proper camera by a proper photographer!