Up The Wenning

I spent a pleasant morning today up the Wenning Valley in northeast Lancs close to the Cumbria and North Yorkshire border, before 'rain stopped play' shortly after lunch. I was carrying out some land surveying and wandering round with a land wheel measuring various features and structures, which of course presented the opportunity to do some birding at the same time!

 The Wenning

I had two Skylarks head northeast this morning high up, and I'm pretty certain that they were moving; my first 'vis' of the year. I had three more Skylarks on some maize stubble along with 13 Redwings and 45 Fieldfares. I also had a few more Thrushes in the form of seven Blackbirds and five Song Thrushes in various sections of hedgerow.

Out on some of the pasture were eleven Lapwings, but they weren't setting up territory yet, and keeping them company were three Brown Hares. The only raptor I had was a calling Buzzard from the woodland across the river.

 Lapwing

On the river I had a Grey Heron and Little Egret, and then I pushed off twenty-ish  Teal. On this section of river there is a decent sized Sand Martin colony and I thought it won't be long before they are back.

I finished the day off with a pint of Stanley's in the new Kirkby Lonsdale brewery in the Royal Barn in Kirkby, and very nice it was too!