Just Swell

Dan reporting for Mr. Carter's hard-earned readership!

The swollen Wildfowler's Pools were the focus this morning, with three greenshanks, 4 green sandpipers, 12 redshanks and 17 black-tailed godwits using the grassy edges.

The 'flood' just N of Aldcliffe Hall Lane had a kingfisher and two little grebes. A med. gull was reported to me as being present a little later.

A modicum of visible migration in the parish with c60 meadow pipit, 5 alba wagtails and 3 grey wagtails over SE, noted between 0915 and 1100. No hirundine movement though.

Stodday sewage works seemed to have pulled down a few migrant wags, with nine grey wagtails on-site.

Spent much of the day honing my pishing-craft, but the bushes were hardly bursting with passerines. My vocalisations did have the undivided of a juv. whitethroat and a few chiffchaffs for a little while though.
And I can really rile a robin.


Thanks Dan - now Jon's breaking news bit...
Well, hardly breaking. 15 snipe were flushed by a sprogbasher at the Wildfowlers' Pools this evening though only a handful of redshank and lapwing, plus a couple of curlew, were present.
The greater sand-lapwing was again amongst the flock feeding in the fields - it really is a striking looking bird.
Little else of note bar the huge distant flocks of birds dropping into the Cockersands / Pilling area as viewed from Aldcliffe Marsh - I can only guess that they were pinkfeet? There were probably a couple of thousand birds...