Monday, 28 January 2013

Smew-th Operator

Redhead smew - Freeman's Pools
The redhead smew continues at Freeman's Pools, showing well over the weekend.
I dragged my 'scope down on Saturday and managed to get a few crummy digiscope images, just for the record.
There wasn't much else going on around the parish other than the usual bits and pieces. There are still good numbers of golden plovers feeding in the fields with lapwing, redshank and curlew. The dunlin flock remains in situ at The Flood.

Pink-footed geese over Aldcliffe
I did bump into Tom Walkington who was out in search of the smew. While we were chatting we noticed a positive swarm of geese approaching from the south. There were at least 3000 birds and as they got closer we scanned through in search of anything other than pinkfeet. Unfortunately many headed over toward the Oxcliffe/Heysham area but a few hundred dropped onto Aldcliffe Marsh (though out of view from our where we were watching) and Tom picked up a single barnacle goose through his 'scope as they descended. Using just my bins I couldn't pick it out as they were just too distant and silhouetted against the white sky.  Presumably these geese were part of the flock that has been present on the other side of the river for a few days.   
On Sunday there were loads of fieldfare and redwing around. The latter particularly numerous around Admiralty Wood.
Now that everything's thawing out and temperatures are steadily climbing to something approaching 'mild', we should start to see more changes in and around Aldcliffe.  

Jon

No comments: