Managed a blast around some of the Parish after work this evening and recorded the following:
At least one chiffchaff heard from the cycle track by Freeman's Wood.
Frog Pond: 2 little egret, 1 wigeon and a snipe - all flushed by the rather comedic sight of a codger in his mobility scooter driving right into the field and up to the pond edge as his rather excited terrier ran around the pool edges. Only at Aldcliffe...
Nest building pairs of both little grebe and coot at Darter Pool.
Green sandpiper and a pair of teal at the Wildfowlers' Pools
80ish meadow pipit and 4 pied wags at The Flood.
At Freeman's Pools another pair of little grebe were nest building and 4 pairs of gadwall, 2 pairs of tufted duck, 1 drake shoveler and another teal pair were present.
No show on the LEO front his evening, though a woodcock flew in from Freeman's Wood and the barn owl appeared, once again just after I left, at around 7.10pm (thanks to Guy McC for the call). A tawny owl was calling from Freeman's Wood.
* Little-ringed plover seen at The Flood this morning by JWB et al.
Welcome to Aldcliffe & Freeman's Wood, Lancaster - an area of the Lune Estuary in Morecambe Bay, North Lancs.
Friday, 20 March 2009
Thursday, 19 March 2009
Springy things
A very quick visit after work proved pretty fruitful, despite a couple of teenagers dossing about around the pool edge.
8 gadwall, 4 tufties, 1 goldeneye, 1 shoveler, 3 little grebe and green sandpiper were on Freeman's Pools plus a pair of redshank were 'getting it on' on the gravel island.
I was alerted to the sound of some snipe and as I counted 7 exploding from the pool edge I noticed the reason - a lovely long-eared owl had suddenly appeared and was quartering the rough ground. It soon landed on a post a few metres away and gave superb vies for quiet some time before flying off to hunt over the area behind Keyline.
I was delighted to see it make a reappearance and if I'm honest it was pretty nice to have it all to myself again on such a glorious evening!
Unfortunately I couldn't hang around and I left around 6.30pm.
Big thanks to Brian Tollitt for these cracking shots of the LEO, taken last weekend.
From Guy McClelland this morning:
4 prs of gadwall, 4 tufties, 1 goldeneye, 1 drake shoveller and 4 snipe were the pick of Freeman's pool.
3 goldcrest in Freeman's Wood.
Pair of little grebe on Darter Pond.
2 singing reed buntings in the area.
4 singing chiffchaff around the parish
1 wheatear along the high tide mark
and from Steve Wallis this afternoon:
15.00.
As above, plus Green Sandpiper Freeman's Pool. Little Egret Frog pond. Half a dozen Reed Bunting along the track near Flood. Spotted Redshank usual place, along with two Little Egrets nearby
Monday, 16 March 2009
Owlcyon days come to an end....
On the goose: rather disappointingly only one person has voiced their opinion so far and they are leaning toward it being a pink-foot, mainly on the basis of the bill colour.
Certainly, in one of the pics it doesn't appear orange at all although on another it does! In the field, the bill was definitely brighter and seemingly 'orangey' compared to the pinkfeet around it.
One of the things that struck Dan and I was the clear white edging to the tertials and greater coverts, giving the bird a much more contrasty appearance than the nearby pinkfeet - a feature maybe supporting bean, though probably not enough. Structurally, the head did seem longer with something of a peak (we said like a mini-whooper swan at the time), though nowhere near as distinct as one would hope for. And it is clearly a big, robust bird with longer legs than the other geese it was with.
What are the odds of a hybrid? We all know how catholic wildfowl can be when it comes to getting off with anything with webbed feet... Just a thought.
Now if it is a orange-legged pinkfooted goose I'd definitely say that that was more unusual than a white wag in mid-March.
Back to this evening's sightings, or lack of. I got to Freeman's Pools just before 6pm and nothing had been spotted (except for a lovely white stoat...).
By 6.45pm it was almost dark and just Benjie and I were left and as I was about to give up the barn owl suddenly appeared, and almost as suddenly disappeared having flown around the pool edge and through the pathway trees and toward the stubble fields.
This could support a theory I conjured up yesterday, that having battered the hell out of the vole population around the pools for a number of weeks, the owls were now hunting elsewhere - hence no long-eared for 2 nights (and its 'unusual' behaviour on Saturday). Also, when the SEO made a brief appearance a few nights ago it also made straight for the fields south of the pools and disappeared. Of course, the LEO could simply have headed off back to Norway or wherever...
Just after the barn owl showed, a woodcock flew in from Freeman's Wood and a snipe had been drumming briefly earlier.
Certainly, in one of the pics it doesn't appear orange at all although on another it does! In the field, the bill was definitely brighter and seemingly 'orangey' compared to the pinkfeet around it.
One of the things that struck Dan and I was the clear white edging to the tertials and greater coverts, giving the bird a much more contrasty appearance than the nearby pinkfeet - a feature maybe supporting bean, though probably not enough. Structurally, the head did seem longer with something of a peak (we said like a mini-whooper swan at the time), though nowhere near as distinct as one would hope for. And it is clearly a big, robust bird with longer legs than the other geese it was with.
What are the odds of a hybrid? We all know how catholic wildfowl can be when it comes to getting off with anything with webbed feet... Just a thought.
Now if it is a orange-legged pinkfooted goose I'd definitely say that that was more unusual than a white wag in mid-March.
Back to this evening's sightings, or lack of. I got to Freeman's Pools just before 6pm and nothing had been spotted (except for a lovely white stoat...).
By 6.45pm it was almost dark and just Benjie and I were left and as I was about to give up the barn owl suddenly appeared, and almost as suddenly disappeared having flown around the pool edge and through the pathway trees and toward the stubble fields.
This could support a theory I conjured up yesterday, that having battered the hell out of the vole population around the pools for a number of weeks, the owls were now hunting elsewhere - hence no long-eared for 2 nights (and its 'unusual' behaviour on Saturday). Also, when the SEO made a brief appearance a few nights ago it also made straight for the fields south of the pools and disappeared. Of course, the LEO could simply have headed off back to Norway or wherever...
Just after the barn owl showed, a woodcock flew in from Freeman's Wood and a snipe had been drumming briefly earlier.
Sunday, 15 March 2009
Bean had?
Bloody hell - what a palaver! I wish I'd never come across that orange-legged goose now... Not really, I love a mystery and boy, is this turning into a good one!
I'm sure some goose-savvy expert will have all the ansers (pun intended) and I'll be delighted to be thoroughly discredited by having erroneously called it a bean goose if it turns out to be nothing more than not-pinkfoot (in as much as it has orange feet).
Have a look at the pics Dan took today while we were trying our hardest to figure out what the hell was going on and feel free to comment either on this blog, or on the LDBWS website. We've come up with very convincing arguments for just about every conceivable outcome so come on, surprise us!
On a more typical thread, highlights from the Aldcliffe area today included the above mentioned goose amongst approx 800 normal (ie boring) pinkfeet as well as 3 pairs of gadwall, 4 tufted duck, 13 goldeneye, 1 green sandpiper and a spotted redshank.
The first real sub-Saharan migrants in the shape of 2 sand martins blasted through early afternoon adding to the feeling of spring in the air.
The late afternoon owl-session was abandoned due to a piece of beef being in the oven which meant that I missed the barn owl by 2 minutes, though ominously the long-eared, after yesterday's notable change of habit, wasn't (as far as I'm aware) seen at all. Despite the huge crowds gathered in anticipation.
Saturday, 14 March 2009
Bean counting
Quiet a day on the old patch. Following a tip-off I checked Pete Woodruff's blog and saw a photo of a VERY interesting stonechat taken yesterday in the Aldcliffe area. However, despite a lot of searching in the same, and other favoured stonechat, areas I drew a total blank. Could have been this year's bluethroat!
Otherwise some good stuff around including:
My first trawl of the day around Freeman's Pools revealed a slight increase in gadwall with 3 pairs present plus 2 tufted duck, 1 goldenenye, 1 little grebe, 14 coot, 3 moorhen and a pair of mute swans. A pair each of lapwing and oystercatcher were looking cozy on the island as was a shelduck. 3 snipe there too.
The other pools were a bit quiet though some 800 pinkfeet were in the Trigg Point field and although distant it was clear that nothing too noticeable was amongst them. I'll come back to that later!
A little owl was in its usual roost at Admiralty Wood.
After trampling around looking (and failing) for jack snipe, though flushing 2 common snipe I checked The Flood where a green sandpiper and water rail were showing.
Checking through the carpet of feeding passerines I was chuffed to notice a white wagtail with 10 pieds, 26 meadow pipit and 3 reed bunts.
The geese had move a bit nearer by late afternoon and were in the fields adjacent to the upper track. Scanning through with just my bins I soon picked out a bean goose. Nice one. It was probably about 170m distant and I could make out what I thought was all I needed to be sure of its specific ID. After a chat with Dan and Pete I was relatively happy that it was a 'probable' taiga, but being cautious by nature I wanted to check the literature before declaring anything positive. That didn't entirely work, though I think I'm still inclined toward it being fabalis - I'll be happily disproved though if someone tells me otherwise!
Checking the time, my mind then turned to owls and I headed back to Freeman's Pools where the long-eared owl did its best to defy convention and failed to turn up either in the place it usually does or at the time it has been reliably doing all week.
It took some locating - and around 5.20pm I discovered it sat on a post between the new flood defence bund and the Freeman's Wood pathway. It then gave a bit of a runaround (flushing 2 green sandpipers as it went) before settling into its routine of showing well around the pool edges. I left at 5.45pm with it still being enjoyed by a small gathering.
Otherwise some good stuff around including:
My first trawl of the day around Freeman's Pools revealed a slight increase in gadwall with 3 pairs present plus 2 tufted duck, 1 goldenenye, 1 little grebe, 14 coot, 3 moorhen and a pair of mute swans. A pair each of lapwing and oystercatcher were looking cozy on the island as was a shelduck. 3 snipe there too.
The other pools were a bit quiet though some 800 pinkfeet were in the Trigg Point field and although distant it was clear that nothing too noticeable was amongst them. I'll come back to that later!
A little owl was in its usual roost at Admiralty Wood.
After trampling around looking (and failing) for jack snipe, though flushing 2 common snipe I checked The Flood where a green sandpiper and water rail were showing.
Checking through the carpet of feeding passerines I was chuffed to notice a white wagtail with 10 pieds, 26 meadow pipit and 3 reed bunts.
The geese had move a bit nearer by late afternoon and were in the fields adjacent to the upper track. Scanning through with just my bins I soon picked out a bean goose. Nice one. It was probably about 170m distant and I could make out what I thought was all I needed to be sure of its specific ID. After a chat with Dan and Pete I was relatively happy that it was a 'probable' taiga, but being cautious by nature I wanted to check the literature before declaring anything positive. That didn't entirely work, though I think I'm still inclined toward it being fabalis - I'll be happily disproved though if someone tells me otherwise!
Checking the time, my mind then turned to owls and I headed back to Freeman's Pools where the long-eared owl did its best to defy convention and failed to turn up either in the place it usually does or at the time it has been reliably doing all week.
It took some locating - and around 5.20pm I discovered it sat on a post between the new flood defence bund and the Freeman's Wood pathway. It then gave a bit of a runaround (flushing 2 green sandpipers as it went) before settling into its routine of showing well around the pool edges. I left at 5.45pm with it still being enjoyed by a small gathering.
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