Thursday 30 April 2015

All Work and No Play!

I hate being busy in the spring, but I shouldn't grumble really, but I don't think we birders are ever happy. And unfortunately it is looking like it is going to be weekend before I get out proper, but at least it's a three day weekend, so fingers crossed for three days of birding and ringing!

I have been out, sort of, this week but it's all been work related. On Monday (27th) I had a breeding wader survey to do in east Lancs. The site did reveal some breeding waders in the form of two Curlews and 17 Lapwings. Other bits and pieces encountered during the survey were eight Linnets, a Raven, two Stock Doves, two Skylarks, two male Wheatears and a Tree Pipit.

Yesterday I was out at a long standing clients farm in Bowland checking on some habitat creation and management that had been done fairly recently on the farm. At least twelve wader scrapes have gone in to provide foraging areas for wader chicks, and in one particular field with a slight slope the contractor had been quite inventive with the creation of a series of five scrapes with dams, bunds and interconnecting ditches.

On my walk round checking the work I recorded eight Curlews, seven Brown Hares, 17 Lapwings, five Tufted Ducks, a Reed Bunting and two Snipe to name but a few.

Fingers crossed for some good weather over the coming weekend for some more migrants and the first visit to my nest box schemes!

2 comments:

Warren Baker said...

Good luck out there this weekend Mate! :-)

The Hairy Birder said...

Thanks Mate and good luck to you too!

Cheers,

Seumus