Tuesday 9 August 2016

Summertime Blues

I managed a couple of hours mooching around the patch this morning for the first time in several days. I've been down in Oxfordshire working at the impressively massive event that is BBC Countryfile Live. From the RSPB exhibit I spotted a couple of raptor species overhead, both rarely encountered in North Lancashire; red kite and hobby. In that part of the world of course, both birds are relatively common and a treat for us northerners to see!

Treats, however, were harder to find while birding at Aldcliffe today... hardly surprising really as mid-summer can often be a bit dull in the birding world.
Even so, highlights included the following:
Freeman's Pools - female tufted duck with young, 5 ad & 3 young little grebes, 40+ swifts overhead.
Wildfowlers' Pools - 2 tree sparrows, 1 green sandpiper, 4 common snipe, 6 teal.
Elsewhere the usual little egrets, greylags, cormorants and such were all present and correct. A female sparrowhawk was patrolling the cycle track hedges and a grey partridge was seen with just one well-grown youngster in tow.

Jon

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I've seen a large dark brown heron-like bird on the canal at Aldcliffe this morning, and also walking about in the stubble in an adjacent field a couple of days ago. The bird has a shorter neck than a heron, but stands still in a heron like way. I'm no birder, but it seemed unusual to me. Frank 31/08/16

Oliver Cromwell the 2nd said...

Bar-headed goose with all the Canadas and Greylags out on the marsh this morning. ( I think it's Wednesday 31st) .Gripping stuff eh ?

Jon Carter said...

The brown heron-like bird sounds intriguing - I've had a look but haven't seen it...

As for the bar-headed goose - I dipped!! I expect it'll rear it's head again soon enough :-)