Pennington Flash Osprey

One of the best ways to see a migrating osprey is to use your ears and listen. Not for the call of the osprey itself which is an easily learned and diagnostic whistle, but more for the calls of the irate posse of gulls which seem to follow them everywhere and which often announce the arrival of this magnificent raptor long before you see it.

I had just arrived at Sorrowcow farm near the yacht club today, when I became aware that the gulls were going mad. This wasn't just the usual aggressive calls amongst themselves, something was really bothering them. I've experienced this before and at this time of year I was pretty confident that I knew what it would be even before I looked up. Looking behind me I could see that the birds were still quite distant but fortunately they were heading straight towards me from the south.  In the middle of the gulls I could see a large shape with arched wings and a head on profile not unlike that of a huge gull. Clearly an osprey! It flew right over me and I could see that it had a missing secondary on it's left wing. For an osprey it was really shifting, it powered its way north and I watched it until it was just a dot in the distance. An awesome experience. Of course ospreys eat exclusively fish so it's no threat to the gulls but I guess that they just don't like such a big bird of prey in their area. This is at least the third osprey reported over Lowton / Landside since Saturday.

Lowton Bird Observatory, Day 15

Drama at the obs today when a coal tit was heard singing in the hawthorn bush in the back garden, resulting is a quick exit through the patio doors. It took a while to pin the bird down but eventually it showed well. I was just thinking that the day was going to peter out with just the usuals seen or heard, but coal tit is a new lockdown tick bringing the total species seen in the garden in the past 14 days to 42. I have seen them in the garden before but it's certainly not a regular visitor.

Pennington Flash

Little ringed plover 2 from Ramsdales hide
Common sandpiper 1 from the jetty near Horrock's hide
Willow warbler 10
Shelduck 2

Pennington Flash

10+ Willow warblers singing
10 Sand martins
Cetti's warbler 7 singing males. East bay, south side near old cormorant hide, Sorrowcow pond, West bay, Ramsdales, Tom Edmondson, Teal hide.

Lowton Bird Observatory, Day 13

A very gentle day at the obs today, a buzzard and a sparrowhawk provided the best of the entertainment soaring overhead, but other than that it was all about the regulars, including this fabulous blackbird collecting inverts from the lawn.

Lowton Bird Observatory, Day 12

Whoa, adult peregrine straight through the garden chasing something, it had to swerve to avoid the house! Awesome sight. Garden tick and lockdown birding tick. Nice. Perhaps today will be a good raptor day 🙏. Peregrine brings the lockdown garden list to 41 species and the overall garden list to 53.

Also this morning a great tit in a neighbours garden.

Lowton Bird Observatory, Day 11

Spurred on by the success of last night and the scoter passage, today I decided to turn my attention to the often neglected East hide (also known as the front room, or Colin's cave).  The garden here is much smaller but the views are much wider and less enclosed and I always feel as if I'm likely to see more from here which is why I have the scope set up in this room.

Spending a few hours here has certainly paid off so far, with a new lockdown species in the shape of two kestrels as well as buzzards, raven, sand martin, grey heron and a few lapwings. In the photo above I'm looking east, so north (and Pennington Flash) is to the left and south is to the right. Almost directly east there is farm land and beyond that Hope Carr, so always a chance of movement between those places and the flash, but the downside is that birds tend to be more distant.

Late afternoon a brown shape appeared on top of a tree at the end of the road which it turns out is a singing song thrush, another new bird for lockdown birding.

This evening I had another session in the garden but failed to add any further species to the day list. Considering that we are on lockdown and told to stay at home to protect the NHS, there's an awful lot of road users out even right up to the time that I went to bed at 23.00. It's supposed to be essential journeys only, I'd love to know what's essential for most of these vehicles at 23.00 on a Friday night.

Pennington Flash

Sand martin 400
Grey wagtail 2
Wigeon 4
Nuthatch singing
Raven 1
Garganey 2 male & female
Cetti's warbler 6 singing males
Goosander 1 female

Lowton Bird Observatory, Day 10 - Huge movement of common scoter

The past couple of days have seen a huge passage of common scoter at night over North West England, probably involving birds moving from the North Wales coast and Liverpool Bay back to their breeding grounds in northern Russia. I'm glad to say that the obs shared in the experience with three or four flocks over during the course of a bitterly cold evening. The calls were quite distant except for one flock which seemed to fly right overhead. A tremendous experience and unsurprisingly common scoter is a garden tick! Just as I was about to turn in for the night a couple of oystercatchers flew over calling.

It seemed like fun at first but it turned into a battle for survival!

Not too much to report during daylight hours with just the usual species seen.

Pennington Flash

Garganey 2 male & female
Sand Martin 400
Black-tailed godwit 1
Redshank 2
Cetti's warbler 5 singing males
Wigeon 5

Pennington Flash

Garganey 2 male & female
Sand martin 300
Redshank 2
Black-tailed godwit 1
Shelduck 4
Goldeneye 15
Goosander 2 females