Cattle Egret - NEW site record at Salford Priors

                                          Cattle Egret (Francis Peplow)

                                          Pinkie edging towards it

                                         Just a few of Saturdays gulls

Linnet

Reed Bunting

Yet another decent weekend despite some dull foggy weather.  On Saturday we opted for an afternoon shift whilst on Sunday we just waited for fog to lift. 

The best birds on Sunday where when Squire picked out a Pink-footed Goose and it was as we were watching them that we saw the White-fronts we'd previously seen last weekend.

Francis Peplow found a Cattle Egret roosting on the main pit on Monday morning (no sign since) when he called in hoping to see the geese. This is a first record of the site (201st species excluding sub-species). With very few cattle fields around us we are wondering where it has flown too. This takes us to 142 species for the year.

Best counts of the weekend was as follows:-8 Pochard, 14 Gadwall, 4 Teal, 15, Shoveler, 3 Wigeon, female Goosander, Pink-footed Goose, 8 Russian White-fronted Geese, 2 Common Gull, 1200 Black-headed Gull, 800 large gulls including 1W YLG, LBBG & Herring, 80 Linnet, 400 Starling, 300 Fieldfare, 100 Redwing, 2 Buzzard, Sparrowhawk, Kestrel, 20 Skylark, 30 Meadow Pipit, Grey Wagtail and 2 Pied Wagtail.

Rain, rain & Pinkies

                                               Pink-footed Geese

            All images taken by Richard Harbird (Morton Bagot Birder)

                                           Greenshank & Dunlin

My dreary site visit on Saturday had to be early due to the local shoot arriving to blast more simple partridges out of the air and with forecast very grim for next 24 hours I was plotting an east coast jolly on the Sunday.

Jon however stuck to his guns and although got a severe drencing also recorded four year ticks for us with them being Greenshank, Rock Pipit, Pink-footed Goose and Knot. Much respect ! This took us to 136 for the year, just one below last years total but 7 off the 2018 record year. Richard Harbird visited during the afternoon and also had an excellent visit.

Jon's count included 48 Little Grebe, 14 Cormorant, 4 Grey Heron, 1 Little Egret (Pophills), 17 Mute Swans, four Pink-footed Geese on the flood, 195 Greylag Geese, 410 Canada Geese, 1 Wigeon (12 Saturday), 2 Gadwall, 36 Teal, 400 Mallard (plus 150 more on the Broom flood), 5 Shoveler, 36 Tufted Duck, 95 Coot, 1 Golden Plover, 1 Knot (second for site) on flood, 2 Dunlin, 1 Snipe (2 Saturday), 2 Greenshank on flood, (1 Lapwing Saturday) 1 Kingfisher, 65 Skylark, 40 House Martin, 5 Swallow, 250 Meadow Pipits, 1 Rock Pipit on flood, 1 Yellow Wagtail, 1 Grey Wagtail, 40 Pied Wagtail, 3 Stonechats, 5 Chiffchaff, 25 Long-tailed Tit and 4 Raven.

 

A real goose chase

Pinkies galore

 Count them if you like

White front at back of image

Good numbers of Little Egrets & a Great White on show

 Whooper family

 Brilliant views

 Family advice

Lunch time in Lancashire

After sports taxi duty on Saturday (taking in three basketball games) I made the decision on Sunday to head north to catch up with a Red-breasted Goose that had been showing in the same field for previous six days. Sadly on arrival there was no sign except four White-fronted & a flock of Pink-footed Geese in the area.  Disappointing but certainly not the end of the world, so after an hour of checking every Goose flying over I started to investigate the local fields to see if I could find any more flocks of Geese.

There were thousands and thousands in many different locations. My car battery got a real work out as I moved around as best as possible. When looking for some Whooper Swans I found a Great White Egret stood among a flock of Mute Swans that had been overlooked by the locals. Instead of finding a couple of Whoopers I found a whole field of them, including a couple of Bewicks for good measure. I’d never seen this many in a remote location like this, it seems the lush grass was a real attraction for them.

Heading back towards Cockenham I found a layby that had great views of the landscape so I opted to scan from here for an hour. The numbers of Pink-feet were astonishing and when they flew as a group the sky turned dark. After thirty minutes I picked up the Todd’s Canada Goose along a fence line was a good addition along with a Bean Goose walking in the opposite direction. The Todd’s had been in the company of the Red-Breasted in Norfolk so I stuck to my task searching but all in vein. The M6 was relatively quiet but the long 50 mph speed restriction made the journey a little longer than it needed to be. Some of the weekend birders from around the local area had missed the bird three times as apparently its now disappeared every Sunday it’s been in the area.