At 8am I got a message from Bill at Carr Mill Dam informing me that he had a
knot on the concrete next to the outflow. I was aware that it wouldn't stay
long, it only needed a dog walker to stick his head over the wall, or a
fishermen to decide to go into that area and it would be gone, but I'd never
seen one in St Helens, so I had to give it a go.
At that time of day it's not an easy journey, with at least a couple of
bottlenecks to negotiate including Haydock Island, plus a set of road works
and school traffic, all combining to give me a estimated journey time of 32
minutes to cover just over 13km (8 miles).
Fortunately when I got there it was still present and showing well, though I
did have to view through the metal fence around the outflow. I quickly fired
off a few photos and then went back to the car for my coat and scope.
I set up the scope and took this very brief video before the bird flew and was
gone, flying high to the south west until lost to sight. At the end of the
video you can see it crouch immediately before it flew.
This was the 7th record of knot in St Helens, but the first away from Prescot
Reservoirs and the first for 18 years.
The outflow. The pot of gold was just to the right.
No comments:
Post a Comment