Tuesday 9 September 2008

Fowl Weather

The following account of birding Aldcliffe on tuesday 9th is by Dan Haywood aged 33-and-a third.

On my way out I spied a wheatear alighting atop a lamp-post on the Marsh estate.

I rushed down the road on my Raleigh Chopper hoping that this urban chat indicated some sort of a passerine fall in the parish...

Not so. I managed to pish out a few willow warblers and a goldcrest from some sheltered cover at Stodday, but any scarce sylvias or hippos were staying silent and well-hidden!

Only ducks were 'new in' so far as I could tell... A pair of gadwall were keeping a green sandpiper company at Freeman's Pools, and two pintails and 16 teal were making 'the flood' look pretty.

On the saltmarsh a scrum of 6 little egrets was mercilessly ridding a tiny pool of animal life--a bit like shooting fish (or shrimp or crabs?) in a barrel.

A few sand martins were a small part of a hirundine swirl (c.100 birds) over the sewage tanks. Twos and threes of swallows seemed to be heading south here and there.

Four migrant hawkers were on patrol inbetween downpours.

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