Birds Of The Froorland Minge

Several years ago a colleague of mine was giving a presentation of a project he had been involved in with the RSPB. The title of his presentation, and indeed the project, was 'Birds of the Moorland Fringe' but an accidental spoonerism as he read out the title of his talk caused fits of laughter throughout the room. As I was surveying a farm on the moorland fringe today it got me thinking about JC and his presentation and hence the title of my blog.

I was on a farm at the western end of Bowland that we hope to improve for breeding waders and I was carrying out a survey of all the environmental, historical and landscape features as part of the application. A number of Swallows and House Martins seemed to be steadily moving southwest during the morning and in total I had 50 and 10 respectively. The only other 'vis' was restricted to 10 each of Meadow Pipits and Pied Wagtails.

 Bowland

A large number of Starlings, probably about a thousand, were feeding in fields close to the farmstead and were very noisy until a Sparrowhawk shot through and all was quiet. There was a nice network of hedgerows on the farm but all was quiet in them other than a Willow Warbler and some 'ticking' Robins.

 Willow Warbler

I had 5 Buzzards during my walk round and I never tire of seeing these graceful raptors. In an adjacent field was some brassica 'game' cover crop and 2 Reed Buntings and 7 Linnets fed within. That was all I had bird wise today and I was hoping to get out ringing tomorrow, but the weather forecast has changed again. It is going to be clear with some raining come in over night, so I will probably still go birding as tonight and tomorrow looks likely to be the last day of south-southeasterly winds for a few days. I will find that Barred Warbler! That's jinxed it then; I'll let you know.