Hilbre Island

I had a quick walk over to Hilbre Island this morning with my two sons, the first time all three of us have been over together for a good few years. Highlight for me was the sight of two ravens playing on the wind at Middle Eye.

I didn't do a full count of the brent geese, but there were at least 300 pale-bellied birds as well as two dark-bellied.

Bewick's Swans, Frodsham Marsh

A family party of four Bewick's swans on Frodsham marsh today, off Lordship Lane, were my first for four years and brought my 2021 year list to a nice round 250 species. They've really declined over the past couple of decades, at one time they outnumbered whoopers at Martin Mere with 500 there as recently as 1997 and my record count was 818 in 1990. Even more impressive, when I visited Welney in Norfolk in 1990, there were 2000+ Bewick's swans. I doubt there are 2000 Bewick's in the whole of the UK these days. It's a real shame, they're such lovely petite swans.

The best place to view these birds is from the footbridge over the M56, accessed from Smithy Lane, Helsby.

Also today, 20 whooper swans and three marsh harriers.

Belted Kingfisher, River Darwen, Roach Bridge

Finally! Since I last saw the belted kingfisher at Redscar Wood on the River Ribble on 25th November, I've looked for it on eight subsequent occasions prior to today, three times at the original site, three times along the canal at Withnell Fold, and twice here on the River Darwen. I've drawn a blank on each of these occasions. I even called in here at Roach Bridge on Monday and left an hour before BirdGuides reported that it was just 1km upriver. 

For a while it looked like I might miss out today as well, the bird was seen this morning up to 11am but then flew high upriver before I arrived and was not seen again for three hours. Would it return? There seems to be no certainty with this bird and on past form it might have gone missing for another two weeks and then turned up at a completely different location. 

However eventually it did return and I felt that it was only fitting given all of the effort that I have put into relocating this bird that I should at least be rewarded with the excitement of finding it for myself when it reappeared today..... and when I did spot it, what a sight it was! A belted kingfisher flying down the river towards me with a large fish in it's bill, slate blue upperparts with a white belly and a dark band across it's chest. Totally unmistakable! It perched up for 30 seconds on an overhanging branch before flying again and calling, landing in a tree on the other side of the river. 

A couple of minutes later it was back again, this time perching on a dead branch in the middle of the river, where it proceeded to eat its fish before flying back to the cover of the tree.

I watched it on and off for the next 30 minutes or so until finally it flew back upriver and perched high in a dead tree about 0.5km away. It stayed here for a few minutes before flying down to the river and I lost it behind the vegetation. I stuck around for another half hour but the light was now going rapidly so I packed up and left. 

I saw it for longer and closer on the Ribble but it was against the light for long periods, and I was too concerned with getting photos to really appreciate the bird. Today I made an effort to try to spend more time watching it. Both were great experiences though.

The track to the field might not be as bad as the fabled (and over exaggerated) death slope on the Ribble, but it is now getting very muddy and slippy and it would be easy to end up on your backside. Wellingtons are definitely recommended. I can't rule out going again because when there is such a fabulous bird locally you can't see it too many times in my opinion. However the farmer has now introduced a £10 entry charge to access his field, which I don't mind paying once, but when you've already seen the bird twice it's not so great. So if I do go again, I might just view from the bridge which is where I would really like to see it and it's free!

Videos of the bird below...

Waders on the Ribble at Redscar Wood

I had decent couple of hours birding on the Ribble at Redscar Wood today, with a nice little array of birds. On one of the shingle banks there were three redshanks, two green sandpipers and a common sandpiper, the latter being surprisingly only my second ever in December. Two little grebes fished in the middle of the river and a kingfisher from the far bank, where there was also a grey wagtail. Overhead a couple of skeins of pink-foots flew past totaling about 150 birds. In the woods there was a good selection of birds calling including nuthatches and goldcrests.

Birding insanity in Lancashire

It's now just over three weeks since I saw Lancashire's belted kingfisher at my first attempt. I just turned up at Redscar wood on the banks of the Ribble and after a scramble down a slippy bank got onto the bird immediately and watched it for about the next hour as it perched in various trees and bushes and flew around calling. Fabulous views of a fabulous bird and a great experience. 

Twenty three days later and the slippy bank now seems the easy bit, the hard bit is the bird actually being present in the first place. I've tried to see it again on another six occasions and discounting an incredibly brief possible sighting of the bird on 7th December, I've failed every time.  Not that anybody else is seeing it, all three sightings recently on the Leeds / Liverpool canal have been by non-birders. However one of them took a photo of the bird and there is no doubt that it is the belted kingfisher.

So I just keep looking, I'd go again tomorrow if I could get away with it but Elaine already thinks I'm insane. I'll wait until she's distracted by work on Monday and slip away again for another search. I'm sure that when I do see it the experience will be so much the better for all of the pain I've endured recently.

Brief encounter with a yank at Banks

I spent another day trying to get a better view of the Richardson's cackling goose at Banks but there was no sign today. It's probably still in the area but so many geese are way out on the saltmarsh, well out of scope range even at 60x. Still, it was a good day with two short-eared owls, three merlin, four peregrine and two great white egrets, plus all of the usual waders and wildfowl. 

I must have walked several miles back and forth along the sea bank. It was a generally dull and at times murky day, which was part of the problem when searching for the cackler, but in the morning there was a little sunshine and during one such period I saw three golden plover flying towards me. They flew right over my head and then banked away and turned back over the marsh and far away. As they turned the sun caught their underwings and I was delighted to see that one of the birds clearly had a grey underwing and axillaries which contrasted nicely with the much whiter underwings of the European golden plover. It was either an American or Pacific golden plover, with the former much more likely and in fact there have been a couple of sightings on the Ribble earlier in the autumn. 

Unfortunately I was unable to get a decent photo of the bird. The photo above is the yank and the photo below is the European. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get the birds in the same photo, however both photos have been lightened to the same amount and you can clearly see how much the white stands out on the European bird.

Red-breasted merganser, Banks marsh

A drake Red-breasted merganser on one of the pools on the saltmarsh at Banks marsh this morning was a very unexpected visitor. Also today a pale-bellied brent goose with the pink-footed geese, plus two barnacle geese. I didn't see the cackling goose but it is still around.

A week at Banks Marsh

Photo: Richardson's cackling goose,
Banks Marsh.

I've spent much of the past week in between jobs at Banks marsh near Southport. It's always an awesome experience and this week has been especially so with stormy and wet low pressure weather systems sweeping in from the west. Sometimes it's been difficult enough to stand up let alone look at birds through the optics, while at other times it's been painful and tiring, battling forwards against strong winds and ferocious hail showers. The weather though is exhilarating and fits the scenery perfectly, vast landscapes and vast skyscapes, these are the kind of views to feed the soul, is there a wilder habitat anywhere in the UK?

The marsh is full of birds, wildfowl, waders, passerines and raptors. Huge flocks of wigeon and teal feed on the saltmarsh, where the commonest waders are curlew, redshank, dunlin, oystercatchers and lapwings, but there are also flocks of golden plover and when a high tide drives them in, knot and grey plover. Passerines include flocks of starlings, skylarks and meadow pipits.

These birds get little peace from a selection of raptors including merlin, peregrine, hen harrier and short-eared owl, and often the whole flock flies up and swirls around, the enigmatic whistles of the wigeon filling the air. 

There are thousands of pink-footed geese on the marsh but they are spread out over large distances and picking out anything different can be a challenge. This week with the flocks there have been Todd's Canada, snow goose and the star attraction, a Richardson's cackling goose, but none are easy to see. Today I spent five hours walking back and too along the sea wall, scanning the salt marsh on one side and the farmland on the other yet only at the end of the day did I eventually catch up with the cackler, and had no sighting at all of the other two rarities. 

Fortunately about half way between Crossens pumping station and Old Hollow Farm I met a birder who had just relocated the cackler and he got me onto it straight away. It was distant, the photo above was taken on 45x scope, 3x phone and then cropped, so goodness knows what that makes it. Probably about 200x magnification. The bird was over 1km distant and by the time I saw it at 14:45 the light was rapidly fading. Still, a great bird and one I hope to see a bit closer in the coming days. I've seen several Richardson's cackling geese over the years, but this bird has the best credentials of all to be a wild bird. I have seen wild cackling goose previously on Islay and at Caerlaverock, but these were all Ridgeway's cackling goose minima.

There are also about 300 Canada geese on the marsh but they are usually way out and the Todd's Canada and the cackling goose don't associate with them, they stick with the pink-foots. The Todd's is a very dark bird and slightly larger than the pinkies but smaller than the regular Canada's, whereas the cackler is paler and smaller than the pinks.

Caspian gull, Redcar Tarn

Tremendous views of a 3rd winter Caspian gull at Redcar tarn, Keighley this afternoon. 

precautions.tricky.sudden

Ah the modern world. Three words can pin you down to an exact location anywhere in the country.

precautions.tricky.sudden

Before I set out for Redscar woods on the Ribble today I thought it best to take the precaution of letting Elaine know where I was going. After all, it is a bit of a tricky slope to get down at the best of times and today I expected to be there alone following a run of six consecutive no-shows by the belted kingfisher. I didn't want to have an accident and end up lying on the banks of the Ribble for the next couple of days. So I looked on the what3words app and it gave me the three words above as being closest to my proposed destination at Tunbrook inlet. If I'd been allowed to chose my own three words to summarise the events of today, it probably would have been these three. Now all I had to do was explain to Elaine what action to take if I didn't come home. Just give the three words to the emergency services! Half an hour later I was on my way....

I arrived at precautions.tricky.sudden at 9am, to find the river at a borderline height of about 1.8m. Borderline because the bird has never shown when the river has been over 1.75m, apart from one very brief sighting on 27th November which was not reported on Birdguides. To make matters worse, Storm Barra was rapidly approaching from the west, the wind was getting up and it had started raining, albeit intermittently at first. Apart from the discomfort this caused, water levels were only likely to rise.

No sign of the belted kingfisher here but there was plenty to keep me entertained, little egrets, ducks and little grebes, plus a nice variety of woodland birds. Best of all an awesome peregrine suddenly appeared and repeatedly dived at a duck before flying away north over the wood.

After an hour or so I was getting cold so I decided to move location further down river. Apart from the advantage of getting the blood circulating again, it would allow me to view a different section of river, which seemed a good idea since I wasn't aware of anybody else looking for the bird today.

I made my way to the same location that I was at last Thursday which gave me a view down the river towards the weir near Brockholes. Almost a soon as I arrived at exact.guilty.dining I saw it but then it was gone, lost behind trees and vegetation as it flew up stream, back towards my previous location. It was all a bit too sudden, it took me by surprise as I was setting up my scope so it was a balancing act as I looked through my bins with one hand and tried to hold up the tripod with the other. It was clearly a largish bird, flying like a kingfisher, with white patches on it's wings and a white belly. Nothing else it could be but the view lasted about 0.56 seconds. Or was 0.57? Either way, it was too brief. I couldn't even tell how far it had flown. Was it worth going back to precautions.tricky.sudden or should I just stay here and wait? It was easier to choose the latter so I settled myself down and waited. I didn't see it again.

By noon Storm Barra was getting a little too close for comfort so I decided to head for home. It was pouring down and the wind was getting quite alarming. I reported the bird as a possible because of the brevity of the sighting. If I hadn't seen the bird 12 days ago I wouldn't have allowed it on to my list based on todays view, but I did see it 12 days ago and it looked good to me.

Redscar Wood, River Ribble

The usual viewing area for the belted kingfisher at Tunbrook inlet on the Ribble was a little crowded when I arrived this morning, it wasn't very comfortable and I couldn't see much of the river, so I climbed back up to the footpath at the top of the cliff and then walked along the river and through Red Scar Wood towards Brockholes. Eventually I dropped down and found a viewing position that allowed me to view a different part of the river. I didn't see the belted kingfisher, but then nobody did, but I did have an excellent few hours all alone watching the bird life on the river.

There were a couple of green sandpipers on the opposite bank as well as two or three little egrets. Kingfishers flew back and forth and there were several goosander and mallard. Woodland birds included nuthatch, great spotted woodpeckers and a few thrushes and tits. An altogether more relaxing experience with the outside chance of finding the star bird for myself.