Return of the Todd's at Banks

I've had a good winter for Todd's Canada Goose with todays bird at Banks my 4th of the winter. This bird which was found about 10 days ago is thought to be the returning bird from previous winters and is a lot paler on the breast than the other Todd's which has been here since October and it also has a dark chin strap. This is only the third time that I have seen this bird and when I look back at my records there's a remarkable consistency of dates, the other times being at Crossens marsh on 23rd March 2019 & 16th March 2020.

Burton Mere Wetlands

A decent day at Burton Mere Wetlands today, the highlights for me were four very distant ruddy shelducks on the saltmarsh from Burton Point where there was also a couple of great white egrets and a female marsh harrier.

Elsewhere on the reserve there was a long-tailed duck, a pair of garganey and five spotted redshanks.

Spring migrants at the Flash

We've had a spell of warm southerly winds over the past week and it's brought in a few early migrants. My earliest ever sand martin was over the back garden on 12th, followed by small numbers at Pennington Flash on 16th & 22nd. Today there was a drake garganey at the flash and a little ringed plover in Ramsdales.

There's been a pair of Mediterranean gulls at the flash over the past couple of weeks and on the 18th they flew over the back garden calling.

Wild Daffs at Sizergh

It's a beautiful time of year for one of our favourite walks, from Sizergh Castle, over Heslington barrows and down to Brigsteer and our favourite pub at the Wheetsheaf Inn. What helps make the walk so special is the flora, and on a beautiful March day such as today, the wild daffodils are the stars. Just a stunning display.

 

The belted kingfisher in March

I was in the area today so called in for my monthly dose of the Lancashire belted kingfisher. It was showing as soon as I arrived and was as good a view as any I have had, save perhaps my very first view of the bird on the Ribble at Redscar Wood. Even so it was a good 100m distant making phone scoping the only viable option if I wanted anything like a decent photo.

I've now seen the bird in November, December, January, February and March, seven times in total, and no doubt I'll go again if it stays. When a bird like this is on your doorstep it seems like madness to me not to fill your boots while you have opportunity, I might never see another in the UK. This is only the 5th for Britain, with the last twitchable bird in Staffordshire in 2005.

Great Orme

A beautiful early spring day for a walk across the Great Orme today which produced a few new birds for the year including most sea birds and chough. Best of all though my earliest ever wheatear if I discount the over wintering bird on the Dee a few years ago.

Rockcliffe Marsh, Cumbria

There are immense numbers of geese on Rockcliffe Marsh in Cumbria at the moment, with at least 15,000 barnacle geese and another 5000 pink-footed. As ever the barnacle flocks contain these really smart looking leucistic birds, there were at least three at Rockcliffe today, plus another that I saw at Mereshead yesterday. I'm sure that there must be even more scattered around the Solway, either that or I'm incredibly lucky because I see at least one bird almost every day. Other geese today included a single pale-bellied brent goose and a few greylags. So far I've ben unable to find a Todd's Canada goose or any other rarity, but the marsh here is vast and almost completely inaccessible.

 

Barnacle Geese at Mereshead

Some nice views of barnacle geese at Mereshead today.

A walk up Criffel

Another glorious day, in fact slightly better than forecast with less wind than I expected, and I decided to have a walk up Criffel. It's not a long walk, only about a 4 mile round trip, but it's quite steep and rises to a height of 1800ft or about the same as Moel Famau. It took me about 1 hour to reach the summit from the car park at Ardwall Mains and it was well worth it with spectacular views over the Solway Firth, just a pity that it was quite a hazy day.

Rockcliffe Marsh, Cumbria

My experience at Caerlaverock yesterday left me a little concerned at the low numbers of geese in the area, but Rockcliffe Marsh today went some way to allaying those fears. Huge numbers of both barnacles and pink-feet were on the marsh, there were at least two more flocks distantly of at least equal size to this.  Two leucistic barnacles are with the flocks but no sign of any Todd's Canada geese today.

There were also at least 1000 each of golden plover and dunlin and an adult peregrine.

This is the hidden  scrape at Esk Boathouse, the first time that I've managed to get a look at it and it was well worth the effort, with 10 avocets and several ruff. Apparently avocets breed here and last autumn the long-toed stint that I saw at St Aidens ended up here.

Ring-necked ducks, Longtown

Two female ring-necked ducks have spent the past week or two on a fishing lake at Longtown. It's not the easiest place to view but fortunately the birds were close to the road today, just a pity that the light was wrong for a really good view.

Images of Powfoot

These are a few images of Powfoot taken during my stay this week.

Sunset over Criffel from Powfoot, Dumfriesshire. This is a very special hill for me, my Dad used to point it out to me whenever we visited the Solway area and it appears in many Peter Scott paintings, usually with a flock of geese flying over. Indeed 500 pink-feet flew over this evening but my camera is nowhere near good enough to capture them well in this light.

Caerlaverock

Nice to get a photo of a tree sparrow emerging from a natural hole for once, rather than a nest box!

Musselburgh

A spectacular day at Musselburgh in glorious weather, just a pity about the photos! I started off at Esk Mouth and very quickly managed to pick up the 1st winter king eider that has been around since before my last visit but which keeps going missing for a week or more at a time. 

Velvet scoter are always offshore in good numbers here, with around 50 present in small flocks, whilst there seemed to be more common scoter than usual, with about 40 seen. The surf scoter were easy enough to pick out, two males and a female, though thank goodness for the males because a female on her own would no doubt present a few problems.

The white-winged scoter had been seen early morning at Esk Mouth but I couldn't find it and many velvets seemed to have moved further west. This was confirmed early afternoon when news came through that the white-winged scoter had been seen off Joppa so I relocated there. Eventually I managed to find the American rarity, it really does have a distinctive jizz, quite different to the velvets once you have your eye in for it.

Moor House and Upper Teesdale

Moor House and Upper Teesdale is an amazing place that I know well from many visits in the spring and summer to see the unique flora. Too early for flowers at the moment so the main attraction today were the black grouse that are easily seen from the roadside, often feeding on semi-improved grasslands in amongst sheep and cows!