On the last day of February, this year a date that only comes around every four years, I had a solo outing along the Quay and Wyre estuary. It was a cold morning, with full cloud cover, and a brisk south-westerly wind, and an in-coming tide.
The Redshanks were being pushed to the drier areas of the Quay, and totalled 251, which is quite a good count for the site. Oystercatchers had already cleared out, and all that were left, were just five birds. The tide had nearly covered Great Knott, and as a consequence, only about 200 birds were on here. Oycs could be seen flying upstream, and were heading to a roost site on the other side of the river.
Just two Teal were in the Quay, and 62 Wigeon were in the channel, and other than a bedraggled looking female Peregrine, that was it.
When I first got to the Quay, I had to wait in my car for a heavy shower to pass over, and this is when Gail phoned me with some sad news.
I don't do celebrity. I respect talented musicians, or academics, and I have my conservation heroes, like Ian Newton, and the late, great Derek Ratcliffe, but that's about it, apart from two guys who ride motorbikes, and cook food that looks like you would eat it, rather than some of the so-called celebrity chef's offerings. Stuffed pea, with a berry jus anyone?
Gail phoned me to say that Hairy Biker, Dave Myers, had sadly passed away after a two-year battle with cancer. We have been watching their latest series, The Hairy Bikers Go West, and although Dave did look poorly at times, we honestly thought that he was on the mend, so it came as a real shock.
I had the pleasure of meeting the Hairy Bikers a number of years ago now, when Gail and I went to see them at a sold-out performance at Blackpool's Winter Gardens. Gail is a real fan of the Hairy's, and we had managed to secure seats on the second row, on the edge of the central isle in the stalls. During the interval, I noticed an 'official' photographer knelt on the stage taking pictures of the audience, and the camera was pointing at yours truly more often than not.
I have a resemblance to Dave, and if I had £5 for every time I have been asked "are you Dave Myers", I could retire. We have been in remote places, like castle Eilean Donan, in Highland for example, having coffee and cake, and a member of staff has come up to me and asked if I was Dave from the Hairy Bikers!
When the Bikers came back on stage after the interval, Si King came to the front of the stage and said "we need a volunteer to help with this next bit, and that will be you sir", pointing at me at the same time. I climbed up on stage with Si exclaiming to Dave that I must be his long, lost brother, and Dave ran across the stage shouting "brother", and gave me an enormous hug. I spent the next ten minutes on stage with them, helping with a daft Houdini act, where Dave was in padlock and chains, and it was my job to check everything was secure. Of course, they were setting me up, because every time I said that a padlock and chain was secure, it would come undone. Gail thought it was hilarious, and after getting over my initial surprise, I did enjoy it.
Dave was a lovely bloke, and he is gone far too soon. Rest in peace fella.
A couple of mentions of some garden wildlife over this past week or so. We now have Frog spawn in our pond, and up to press, there are over six Frogs every night in the pond, so hopefully we might get a little more.
We also had an avian terminator in the garden one afternoon, in the form of a male Sparrowhawk. I looked out of the window and thought the garden looked quiet, and there perched up in the apple tree was this little fellow below!
On the first day of the month, Gail and I visited our Pied Flycatcher nest box scheme in the Hodder Valley in Bowland. We have 43 boxes up, and we replaced two that were looking a bit tired, and put another two up, making 45 boxes in total now.
The sound-scape as we walked amongst the trees, was that of displaying Curlew from the fields at the top of the valley sides. In the bottom of the valley, a female Goosander flew upstream, and we also had two Jays, a Great Spotted Woodpecker, two Siskins, a singing Goldcrest and two Brown Hares.
A few plants were starting to show, with flowers appearing on the Dog's Mercury and Lords-and-Ladies were more obvious on the still relatively bare woodland floor in places. Splashes of colour were provided by Scarlet Elfcup, and this colourful fungus was scattered throughout the woodland.
Lords-and-Ladies
A few days ago, I had a meeting at my client's farm near Slaidburn, again in Bowland. I got there early, and had a drive round in my car to see what I could see. There is a good network of tracks on the farm, and you can drive round using your car as a mobile hide.
Curlews and Lapwings had started to arrive back on the farm, and I had four and six of each, a lot more to arrive yet. Oystercatchers were in greater numbers, 26 were alongside the main pool in the central wetland complex. As was a Little Egret, which is regular now, and I must admit it still looks odd in this upland landscape. Two species of raptor, and an honorary raptor; two Buzzards, a Kestrel and a Raven. A male Stonechat, also made it into my notebook. Always a good species to see.
The following day I was at my wintering bird survey site, south of the Ribble, for the penultimate visit. It was quite a crisp, clear morning with a sharp easterly breeze. I added a new species for the site, for the survey period, in the form of a Great White Egret, and had seven of their 'Little' cousins.
Woodpigeon numbers were still relatively high, with a total of 103, and a group of 18 Fieldfares had tagged onto a feeding flock of Starlings. A number of Starling flocks, 1,900 birds in total, were arriving from the northwest and heading south at first light, and I'm guessing that they were coming from the large roost under one of the piers at Blackpool.
Fourteen Skylarks, included four singing individuals, and Shelducks had increased to ten. Tree Sparrow numbers had also increased, and I had nine, very vocal birds as I walked my transect. Linnets numbered 77, and other bits and pieces included a Sparrowhawk, two Kestrels, a male Stonechat and a Buzzard.
Gail and I were back at the Quay a few days ago, and it was a gloriously sunny, but cold morning. Wader numbers were down as it was low tide, and we just had 30 Redshanks and nine Oystercatchers. We noticed that Common Whitlowgrass was flowering, and it won't be long before lots of other plants start flowering as well.
Towards the end of the week, we paid at visit to the Nature Park to oil the padlocks on the gates that give us access to the site, check the water levels in our ringing area, and carry out some management work if possible. We managed to complete two out of the three tasks that we set ourselves.
The padlocks were all oiled, and the last padlock on the gate into our ringing area needed a bit of persuading to unlock, but it is now well and truly oiled, and ready for the spring. The water levels were very high, as expected, and we couldn't even get our car to where we normally park, let alone walk into our net rides. We will keep checking on a weekly basis, until the water levels have dropped enough for us to get in, but it could take a few weeks. We tried to coppice a few Willows in a less flooded area, but the bow waves of walking through the water was spilling over the top of our wellies, so we just coppiced one large Willow and called it a day.
Close to where we coppiced the large Willow we flushed five Snipe, and around the pools over the rest of the site we recorded four singing Cetti's Warblers, 24 Coots, five Little Grebes (two singing), 14 Tufted Ducks, 130 Herring Gulls, two Great Black-backed Gulls, a pair of Great Crested Grebes, a pair of Mute Swans, 19 Mallards, nine Black-headed Gulls, two Lesser Black-backed Gulls, six Canada Geese and ten Wigeon on the river.
A pair of Skylark were in suitable habitat, and a male Stonechat may or may not have been a migrant. A Raven over, and that was about it.
It is looking a bit unsettled this coming week, but there are a couple of mornings that look okay, and the first Wheatears, Sand Martins and Sandwich Terns will be due this week. Something to look forward to.
Over on the right you will see that I have updated the ringing totals for Fylde Ringing Group up until the end of February. One new species for the year was ringed during the month, and this was a Redwing.
The top 4 ringed for the month, and the top 6 'movers and shakers' for the year can be found below.
Top 4 Ringed in February
1. Siskin - 33
2. Goldfinch - 18
3. Chaffinch - 13
Blue Tit - 13
Top 6 Movers and Shakers
1. Siskin - 56 (same position)
2. Blue Tit - 35 (up from 3rd)
3. Goldfinch - 29 (down from 2nd)
4. Chaffinch - 24 (down from 3rd)
5. Tree Sparrow - 21 (straight in)
6. Great Tit - 15 (straight in)
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