It has been a quiet week, and Gail and I have struggled to populate the notebook with sightings, but we have been trying. The week started off with a couple of nesting bird checks for work, and these were completed in sometimes trying conditions with plenty of heavy rain.
The forecast for Wednesday morning was good enough to tempt us to have a ringing session at the Nature Park, and at first light we had almost clear skies with a light northerly wind. When putting a couple of nets up, it felt like a bit of a 'clear-out' morning, and our ringing totals backed this up. We ringed eleven birds as follows:
Reed Warbler - 1
Great Tit - 3
Sedge Warbler - 1
Cetti's Warbler - 1
Whitethroat - 2
Wren - 2
Blackbird - 1
As usual, as we were putting the nets up the Starlings exited their reedbed roost with the usual whoosh, and when you are close to them the noise of their wings as they swirl around, sounds like waves rolling onto the shore.
A few Swallows seemed to be heading north into the wind, as they often do, and a hovering Kestrel is the only other thing of note worth mentioning. However, we do count everything we see and hear, so we can enter a complete count on the British Trust for Ornithology's (BTO) BirdTrack.
Over that following evening we ran our light trap in the garden, for one of our not so regular moth trapping sessions. We trapped 35 moths of 16 species; 2 Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing, 2 Willow Beauty, 15 Large Yellow Underwing, 2 Common Carpet, 1 Common Plume, 1 Marbled Beauty, 1 Setaceous Hebrew Character, 2 Brown House Moth, 1 Yellow Shell, 1 Dotted Clay, 1 Flame Carpet, 1 Agriphila latistra, 2 Agriphila geniculea, 1 Garden Carpet, and 1 Acleris notana/ferrugana. We also had a 'moth trap intruder' in the form of the caddis fly, Mottled Sedge.
On Friday morning I had a solo outing around the coastal farm fields. I was there for first light under 6 oktas cloud cover with a 3 - 4 easterly wind. The tide was a long way out, so I dispensed with any thoughts of sea-watching, and had a walk around the fields and hedges instead. It was quiet, very quiet, and even though I counted absolutely everything, I haven't much to report here.
As I walked along the sea wall there were several House Martins and Swallows continually flying up and down the length of the wall hawking insects, as a number of flies were on the wing. Over 200 Herring Gulls were out on the shore, and a Little Egret fed in one of the tidal pools. I looked for a few plants, but didn't record anything unusual, or should I say, anything that I could identify that was unusual for me! Some Sea Holly was flowering, and these are one of my favourite coastal plants, in fact one of my favourite plants full stop. I think it is a combination of their beauty, and adaptability of their harsh environment that makes them one of my favourites.
I had a saunter through Larkholme Grasslands, and it was another quiet hour here also. Swallows were hawking insects along this stretch of coast as well, and again about 200 Herring Gulls were on the shore. I had two Little Egrets feeding in a tidal pool, so when I saw those five Little Egrets exiting their roost last week, they were very probably heading to some of the tidal pools along this stretch of coast.
I found some more Strawberry Clover, but they are probably in the same tetrad as the coastal farm fields, and that was it. I told you it was quiet!
The forecast is a bit of a mixed bag over the next week, which is typical when I don't have any work next week and could get out lots. I think it is called Sod's law!
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