♫♫ A nightingale sang in B... ♫♫

♫♫ Birkdale dunes ♫♫

News of a nightingale singing at Birkdale convinced me to leave Martin Mere early today and head for the Sefton coast. This is a rare species in Lancashire and the only one that I had previously seen in the county was way back in May 1984 at Ainsdale dunes. The Birds of Lancashire and North Merseyside (2008) considered it rarer than bluethroat in the county and since that book was published the species has undergone declines throughout the UK, so I'm not expecting many more opportunities in my lifetime to hear one locally.

I parked at the end of Weld road and walked south along the coast for 600m to a small group of birders staring at a clump of sea buckthorn. I had no expectations of seeing the bird given how elusive nightingales are, but just to hear it would be enough. When I arrived it hadn't been heard for 45 minutes and a rain shower didn't help, but eventually the sun came out and it started singing about 50m away. It then sang on and off for the next 30 minutes, gradually getting closer until it was little more than 8m in front of us, yet nobody had seen even the slightest movement. Like everybody else, I left without seeing the bird yet well content with the experience. After all, I told myself, the song is the main thing with a nightingale.

You can hear the bird singing in the videos below, but you'll need to turn up the volume. Unfortunately there is also a lot of wind and distant road noise. For some reason it's better if played on your mobile rather than computer. 

The interesting thing is, not only are my two records both from the Sefton coast, all other Lancashire records bar one are also from this area. According to The Birds of Lancashire and North Merseyside, the first county record was at Formby in 1965, followed by records from Fairhaven 1966, Freshfield 1967, Crossens 1980, Ainsdale 1982-1984 (returning bird) & Freshfield 1991. I don't have any information regarding accepted records since 2008, but I can't imagine that there have been very many. If anybody knows please let me know.

The following video is better quality and taken by Michael Binns, the finder of the bird. Thanks to Michael for allowing me to use this video.

Great-tailed grackle, Speke Hall

To tick or not to tick, that is the question. And the answer is who really cares? 

When a North American grackle sp. was found at Speke Hall back in January, it was a bit of head scratcher in more ways than one. It was thought to be a great-tailed grackle and the first question was "how did it get here?". North American birds often get caught up in weather systems and carried across the Atlantic, but this is thought unlikely in the case of great-tailed grackle which is not a long distant migrant and so less prone to the vagaries of the planets weather systems. 

It's more generally assumed that Speke's proximity to the port of Liverpool gives us a big clue. It's not unknown for a bird to get onto a ship while it's in port and stay on board for the duration of the voyage, which may take it to a different country or even to a different continent. American sparrows which turn up in the UK are often thought to cross the Atlantic in this way, and other species such as house crow have expanded their range thanks to ship assistance. This is considered the most likely explanation as to how this bird got here.

This brings us to the second and more fundamental question raised by the appearance of this grackle - "exactly which species is it?". Common can be ruled out immediately because of it's size and much shorter tail, but boat-tailed and great-tailed are more difficult to separate. However, the Speke bird has been considered great-tailed almost from the moment of it's first appearance due to it's white eye ring and flat head. I don't think these features are totally conclusive though, hence the reason why it's been referred to as a 'probable' great-tailed grackle.  Fortunately the bird is a male and it stayed around into the spring and started singing. Analysis of it's song and calls has confirmed that it is indeed great-tailed grackle.

The next question is "Can I tick it?". The rules regarding what is accepted onto the British list are set by the British Ornithologist Union Records Committee (BOURC). Ship assistance alone does not prohibit admittance onto the British list but it must not be port to port and the bird must be capable of making the journey with no assistance. This seems unlikely in the case of great-tailed grackle so it is not currently on the British list.

Ring ouzels Coal Pit Lane

I had a walk along Coal Pit Lane on the Horwich Moors today, looking for ring ouzels and managed to see 13 on the hillside near Green Nook Farm. Always an exciting bird to see, this was my largest ever flock.

Bonaparte's gull, Myerscough Quarry

A first winter Bonaparte's gull has been just north of Preston at Myerscough Quarry, pit 2, for two weeks giving me the opportunity to visit the site for the first time. The bird was showing when I arrived with about 10 black-headed gulls and was feeding by picking invertebrates off the surface of the water.

This was my ninth Bonaparte's gull in the UK and my third in Lancashire following birds at Seaforth (1990) and Heysham (2013).

Brent geese and black-necked grebes at Pennington Flash

I was just about to leave the house to head for the flash this morning when I got a message informing me that there were 11 brent geese in the middle. These would be a new species for me at the flash so I was keen to get there as soon as possible. Five minutes later I arrived at Green Lane near the sailing club, when I got another message informing me that there were also 10 black-necked grebes present!

I was getting my gear out of the car and spotted what had to be the brents flying away towards the east. I was gutted that they appeared to be leaving before I had a chance for a decent look but consoled myself that at least I had seen them. However, they circled back round and by the time I got to the viewing area they had landed again. I set up my scope and digiscoping equipment and started to take a video. The brents consisted of 10 pale-bellied birds and one dark-bellied. I still hadn't seen the black-necked grebes at this point because I was focusing solely on the brents, but I needn't have worried because as I was videoing the brents, the grebes swam behind them in a tight knit flotilla! An amazing sight! 

I watched the brents and grebes for about another 30 minutes but I knew that the geese would go soon because as usual on a Saturday morning the open water swimmers were starting to come out with their usual back up boats. For a while the geese dodged the swimmers but eventually at about 08:45 they'd had enough and flew up and high, before heading off east. 

The brents which winter in our area, i.e. Hilbre Island and the North Wales coast are pale-bellied birds with just the occasional dark-bellied and I guess this is where todays birds originate from, since the east coast birds are mainly dark-bellied with the exception of those on Lindisfarne and I'm not sure why those would head our way, especially at this time of year. I was on Hilbre last week when there were still 100+ pale-bellied and a few dark-bellied brents present. Interestingly the pale-bellied birds in our area breed in Greenland and do not generally go to the east coast of England, so it seems a bit of a strange movement for them to appear at Pennington Flash in the middle of April and even stranger for them to head off east.

A spring morning on Hilbre

My intention had been to go to Martin Mere this morning, but news of a male Sardinian warbler caught and ringed on Hilbre Island first thing made me change my plans. It's always a longshot twitching a bird such as this, they often just disappear into dense vegetation following release, never to be seen again. On top of that, I reckon it takes me two hours from leaving home to arriving on the island. This morning was fairly typical, it took me one hour 15 minutes to battle my way through Liverpool in rush hour traffic to get to the car park in West Kirby, then I had to get my gear together, get my wellies on and walk across the sand and occasional rocks for 3.1km (2 miles) in order to get to the area where the bird had been released. By the time I got to the island, I'd already met a couple of other birders walking back who hadn't seen the bird and Birdguides was reporting no further sign since release. Oh well....

It was a truly glorious morning on Hilbre, I didn't see the Sardinian warbler but there were only two of us looking and the bird may well still be around. Hard to be too disappointed on a day like this, and birds I did see included several wheatears, willow warblers, grasshopper warbler, chiffchaffs, 110 pale-bellied brent geese, 4 eiders, a few common scoter, sandwich terns plus the usual waders. I don't go to Hilbre anywhere near enough and days like today make me think that I should!

Photo: Sardinian warbler, Cyprus March 2026.

The crazy thing is of course, when I was in Cyprus two weeks ago, Sardinian warblers were very numerous, in fact they were a bit of a pain when looking for other, rarer silvia warblers such as eastern orphean, eastern subalpine and Cyprus warbler. I've never seen one in the UK though.

A morning on the Ormes

I was up early this morning and on the Great Orme for 6:30 to see the sunrise, then parked up near the limestone pavement and had a walk looking for migrants. 

Brent geese at Red Wharf Bay

An impressive flock of at least 67 pale-bellied brent geese were still at Red Wharf Bay on Anglesey today.

Homeward bound - almost.

Well that's it. The holiday was over and I was heading to the airport to hand back the hire car. I'd had a good day, I started birding at first light, 5.30am and hadn't stopped until now, 2.30pm, a full nine hours birding. The car was due back at 3pm so I reckoned I couldn't squeeze much more out of it. Wrong!

My phone beeped, I instinctively pulled the car over, read the message and turned the car around. I was heading back to Mandria! It was a 10 minute drive back and then I would need another 10 minutes to get to the airport when I left, so with just 30 minutes before the car was due back, that would leave me 10 minutes birding. I had to rely on the bird showing immediately and well, and also pray that it wouldn't be flushed by some over zealous birder or photographer. Or even a child. Oh well, in for penny.....

Swings on a childrens playground on the beachfront at Mandria. Nothing unusual about that you may think. Until you look closer and see that there's a long-eared owl sat in the hedge behind! It's on migration and had just flown in off the sea exhausted and landed in the first potential cover it could find. 

Agia Varvara and Anarita Park

It's only as recently as last December that I first "discovered" Agia Varvara and even then although I was aware that there were three sets of pools, I only went to the middle set. This holiday, spurred on by advice and reports from other birders, I managed to get to the other two sets, the top pools and the motorway pools and they've been a revelation. 

Today the motorway pools had three species of crake, little x 2, spotted and best of all my first Baillon's of the trip. Very similar to little crake, there are subtle differences that enable us to tell the two species apart. Most obvious is the streaking on the flanks of Baillon's, similar to water rail, which little crake lacks. Baillon's also has better marked upperparts with lots of black and white speckling which again little crake lacks. Finally something that I have never been able to see, little crake has a small red mark at the base of the lower mandible. These crakes are smaller than starlings, they're generally pretty shy and even when they do show well they're often moving quickly either feeding or heading for cover which usually consists of a reedbed. Seeing a tiny red dot on the base of the lower mandible is just beyond me. I suppose if you get a decent photo it might be visible, but not with my camera! I'll just rely on seeing the streaky flanks!

Baillon's crake.

Kourion Stadium

I decided to spend most of my last full day in Cyprus at Kourion stadium near Episokpi. It's just a wonderful place, especially at this time of year with many colourful flowers and some great birds hopping around on the ruins, including Cretzschmar's buntings, eastern black-eared wheatear and Cyprus wheatear.

Cretzschmar's buntings are just fabulous birds, the combination of the grey head with a white eye ring and the red /brown of the wings and body just works so well!

This annoyed little guy is a singing male Cyprus wheatear. Some of my best views of this species have been at the stadium.