Arctic terns, Pennington Flash

Five arctic terns joined the common terns in the heavy afternoon drizzle, all adults and really smart birds especially in comparison to the rather scruffy looking common terns. Very pale wings, long-tailed, short-necked with short, cherry red bills.

Altogether pale birds actually.

A family of cattle egrets at Martin Mere

I had a great mid-summer visit to Martin Mere today, first of all in birding mode and then later switching to grandad mode when the granddaughter arrived 😊. 

Cattle egrets have been more or less resident at the mere for a few months now, but excitingly this morning saw the arrival of a family party of two adults and two juveniles, with presumably one of the resident birds nearby as well. Unlike the adults, the juveniles have black bills and were constantly harassing the the adults, presumably for food. I don't know where these birds have bred, but I'm not sure that it's Martin Mere, more likely a local heronry, perhaps at Southport. I remember years ago, long before the arrival of little egrets, cattle egrets were predicted to breed in the UK, but whilst the latter has exploded in numbers, cattle egrets have plodded along and only in recent years seem to have become established.

The flooded flash

Sunday 23rd July 2023

I spent a couple of hours in Horrock's hide this afternoon, in torrential rain, hoping that something might drop in but all I could manage was 13 common terns. To be honest there's nowhere really left for anything to drop in, unless it be onto the water and yachts and openwater swimmers often stop even that happening. Apart from the terns recent highlights have been four little egrets and a drake common scoter but even they were absent today.

I didn't go to Teal / Charlie Owen hide but I imagine it's impassable. Westleigh Brook had burst it's banks yesterday morning and the footpath was under 20cm of water, after this lot I don't think you'd even get through with wellies.

It's a struggle at the moment with very high water levels and over grown habitat meaning that there is virtually no shoreline, and in any case tall vegetation impedes viewing from almost everywhere. Hopefully now that the children's playground, cafe and new car park have been opened, and the hides have been painted inside and out, and Iron Man has been and gone, they will spend at least some time and money on improving the habitat at this part of Wigans "National Nature Reserve". I have at least been assured that the spit will be completely cleared of vegetation in August or September depending on water levels, and will then be kept clear. We shall see....

White-tailed eagle, Ince Marshes

Imagine if 40 years ago somebody had told you that one day you'll see a white-tailed eagle sitting on the saltmarsh on the Mersey near Frodsham and not only that, you'll video it on your phone, having a poo, from 1.2 miles away! Well today was that day. Such is modern day birding! 

Around three weeks ago a female white-tailed eagle turned up at Ince Marshes in Cheshire and rather than just fly straight over never to be seen again, as seems to be the norm with this species in North West England, it decided to stay a while on the saltmarsh and was seen distantly by many local birders, best viewed from Hale lighthouse on the opposite side of the river over a mile away. It stayed for a couple of days and then disappeared, and that we thought was that. Amazingly though, two days ago it reappeared in exactly the same spot.

Today was my first opportunity to see the bird and I got to the lighthouse nice and early to find that I was the only birder present, at least for the first hour of so. My heart sank a bit. It's a big bird but it's a colossal estuary, approximately two miles wide at this point and seven miles long so finding a bird which if it had already fed could potentially sit in the same spot all day was never going to be easy. However, I did have some rough directions to go off, "look at the chimneys of Stanlow on the far side and yesterday it was under the 4th chimney from the left". I looked here first, but no it wasn't there this morning. So I scanned the edge of the saltmarsh to the left and after a few minutes spotted a large bird of prey right on the edge which from it's size just had to be the eagle. A great black-back mobbed it, the bird barely moved. It was considerably larger than the gull. 

Most of the time I watched it, the eagle either stayed in the same position or shuffled around a bit, but once I did see it fly a short distance, a typically breathtaking sight. Of course I have seen many white-tailed eagles in north west Scotland in previous years, and as recently as May saw an adult near Perth, but even so, to see one on the Mersey saltmarsh was a pretty awesome experience.

 

A Dartford in the Quantocks

....or to be more precise, six Dartfords in the Quantocks, including two singing males and a family party of four. 

I walked along the ridge from Wilmot's pool car park to Weacombe hill and at first the birding was tough going, with just a few meadow pipits and linnets to show for the first mile or so. Then as I got into the main area of gorse and bell heather I started to see stonechats, often in family parties, and soon they were everywhere.

Another mile or so went by and just as I got to the stage where I'd almost given up on Dartford warbler, suddenly I saw a tiny, dark, long tailed bird flit low across the path in front of me and immediately disappear into the gorse. It was obviously a Dartford warbler but I'd hoped for a better view than that, so I stood quietly for a few minutes hoping it would reappear, but without any luck. I continued on my way.

I didn't have long to wait for a decent view, because 50m further down the track another bird flew low over the gorse and this I was able to follow in my binoculars allowing me a much more satisfactory view although this too disappeared into the gorse when it dropped down. Within a few minutes however it emerged onto the top of a gorse bush and started singing, quite a decent view if a little distant for photography given the subject was such a tiny bird, but then within a few seconds it dropped down and was gone. Five minutes later it popped up again on a different gorse bush and warbled out a few scratchy notes before rapidly disappearing again. 

It carried on like this for 20 minutes, never showing for any length of time and always a little distant but I was happy to have seen such a great bird and I continued to the summit of the hill. Later as I retraced my steps back to the car I came across another singing male in a different area and this one had a couple of juveniles and probably a female nearby.

This juvenile was marginally more obliging than the adult, at least it stayed still for long enough for me to photograph it and was probably only half the distance. Not exactly a clear shot though!

The first juvenile common terns of the year at the flash

It's always good to see the first common tern juveniles at the flash, a sure sign of autumn. Yesterday two arrived with their parents and spent most of their time around the boat club.

Frampton Marsh

If there was a competition to decide the best RSPB reserve, it would be very hard to look much further than Frampton Marsh in Lincolnshire. Today I watched two pairs of black-winged stilts with three and two chicks, in amongst large numbers of avocets. I've no idea exactly how many pairs of the latter there are here, but if I was told that there were 200 avocet chicks this year I wouldn't be surprised, the place was covered in them. Lot's of other waders too, around 40 ruff, some with ruffs, hundreds of brick red black-tailed godwits, a flock of 20 greenshank flew over calling and I still can't get the calls of redshank and oystercatchers out of my ears. 

Amazingly while I was there today, a male red-necked phalarope dropped in and showed well, resplendent in his full breeding plumage, yet only a pale imitation of the magnificent female. Meanwhile 10 spoonbills were in front of reception, marsh harriers quartered the marsh, corn buntings sang in the adjacent fields and common terns mobbed me as I walked along the sea bank close to their colony. A fabulous place.

Black-winged stilt chicks. The species has been around in unusually high numbers this year and they have bred in several places.

The day of the common sandpiper

We've had some impressive counts at Pennington Flash so far this year, with around 100 little gulls on 21st April and 26 black terns on 1st June. Today was the day of the common sandpiper, with at least 14 on the spit, most of which were in front of Horrock's hide. In my experience July is a classic time of year for returning common sands, for example on 8th July 2006 I saw a flock of 28 on the banks of Prescot Reservoirs and on the same day 12 at Eccleston Mere. Fourteen in the largest flock I have ever seen at the flash.

There's no denying it's autumn now!

The first common scoter of the autumn

A dull and drizzly morning at Pennington Flash produced the first returning drake common scoter of the autumn, but it didn't stay long and flew high to the east at about 7am.

In the evening there was a redshank and common sandpiper.