Bits & Bobs And Barn Owls

I've had a busy week since coming back from Devon and have been trying to catch up with fieldwork, so it's all been professional birding until this morning. During the week I was carrying out some surveys on a farm on one of the Wyre mosslands and there was an incredible amount of water around with some of the fields flooded quite significantly.

Although causing porblems for the farmers, in terms of getting silage in, the flooding has created some good temporary habitat and on one flood on this particular farm I had 9 Shelducks, 360 Black-headed Gulls (including some juv.'s), 154 Lapwings, 3 Redshank and a single Curlew.

The woodlands and hedgerows held singing Sylvias and Acros and I had 3 Blackcaps, 4 Whitethroats and 3 Sedge Warblers. Talking of Sylvias I was passing the Conder Estuary later in the week and called for a quick look on the estuary and the pools. The tide was running out so the water levels in the estuary were quite high and after all the rain the water levels in the pools were high too. The reuslt of this was few waders. However, I did have a singing Lesser Whitethroat 'rattling' away close to the pool.

This morning Ian and I called at some good friend's of ours farm, Robert and Diana's, to ring some Barn Owl chicks. The chicks were a good size and there were three of them in the box. All three were ringed and placed back into the extremely smelly box. If you've ever smelt an Owl box you'll know what I mean!

 Ian checking the box

Barn Owl chick