Whooper wonderland

Another perfect winters day.

2 large swans were circling the marsh looking for a good landing site. Visually, I couldn't identify them until I heard them honking and they landed just up stream of the pylons.
2 red breasted mergansers and 2 goldeneye were also in the same area.
2 skylark flew overhead
Kingfisher was on the Lune at the western viewpoint and 6 gadwall were on one of the smaller Freemans pools.

Guy

Shiver me barnacles

Not sure if this is a particularly suitable headline. Today was one of only a few winter days each year I am able to walk along the sea wall without hat or gloves.

3 barnacle geese with the greylags and a couple of pinkies on the marsh at Railway Crossroads.
2 greensandpipers on the flood.
20 linnet on the stubble fields.
4 snow geese on the opposite side of the Lune.
3 bullfinch on the top path.
2 grey and 5 pied wags at the sewerage works.
At least one chiffchaff in the bushes at the sewerage works. 1 pale bird with a faint supercilium was seen and I also heard another bird calling on the cycle track which may have been a chiffchaff.

Guy

Snow Joke

SW 3-5, 8 oktas, rain.

The beginning of a gloomy afternoon visit saw the four snow geese cutting across the estuary to feed on Heaton Marsh.

It's funny- when they're on the Aldcliffe side, these white-morph birds look and behave like wild vagrants. On the wrong side of the river.....they look all wrong!

I struggled to find much of interest in the parish proper.

An adult mediterranean gull flew N. over the marsh (P96 perhaps?).

14 tree sparrows and nine linnets were the pick of the stubble.

I heard green sandpiper in the vicinity of the flooded Wildfowler's Pools, but failed to see it/them.

Dan.

Friday...

News from Guy, 2 Green Sandpipers on the wildfowlers pools at 2pm

Managed an hour or so down the patch this morning. The Freeman’s Pool Island has been cleared of all vegetation, looking really promising. A new dung heap by the gate to the stubble field has attracted more birds. There was a Great Crested Grebe on Wildfowler’. There seemed to be more Geese on the Marsh, will hopefully get down over the weekend and have a scan through. The Snow Geese still present.
Freeman’s Pool,
Goldeneye 2
Little Grebe 1
Snipe 2
Coot, usual
Kestrel 1

Track, Stubble Field.
Feral Pigeon 80
Rook 8
Tree Sparrow 19
Chaffinch, Dunnock, Robin, Reed Bunting, Wren
Pheasant 4
Little Grebe on flooded end of track
Darter Pool, Mute Swan 6

Wildfowler’ Pool
Great Crested Grebe 1
Little Grebe 1
Shoveler 4
Coot, Moorhen
Redshank 17
BH Gulls 35/40

Marsh
Lapwing 1800
Snow Geese 4
Greylag, Canada Geese
Little Egret 2
Shelduck 4
SteveW

Outside, Looking In

SE 3-4, 3-7 oktas, dry.

Didn't set foot in the parish today, but did scope it from the wrong side of the estuary !

The four snow geese were still on the marsh mid-afternoon, though they later decamped to improved fields on the Heaton side of the river.

At only around a hundred metres outside of the area, a barn owl (hunting the edges between Snatchems and Salt Ayre cycle track) is worth a mention here too.

Dan.