Wheatears arrive

The first wheatears have arrived in the Rainford area, with two males on Clare's Moss from the Old Coach Road on 23rd March and another two at Moss Lane today. Also today a white wagtail at Moss Lane.

Common scoter, Carr Mill Dam

A female common scoter was on Carr Mill Dam today.

Avocet and kittiwake, Pennington Flash

Once again a gloriously dismal, drizzly day produced the goods at Pennington Flash, with the highlights being an avocet and an adult kittiwake. The avocet started off on the spit and then moved onto Ramsdales scrapes.

Other birds today included my first willow warbler of the year at the Slag lane end, 100 sand martins and two black-tailed godwits.

Caspian gull with "thayeri" pattern primaries, Cutacre

I called in at Cutacre CP this afternoon hoping to see the pair of garganey that had been reported earlier on Swan Lake. I could only see the drake, but while I waited I managed to find a cracking adult or 5CY Caspian gull. A real stunner!

The primary pattern of this bird is unusual for Caspian gull.... 

...the white tongue on P10 joins the white tip on the inner web, reminiscent of Thayer's gull. I didn't notice this myself until it was pointed out to me by somebody looking at the photos, but apparently about 5% of Caspian gulls have this "thayeri" pattern. More usually the tongue does not touch the white tip and the area of black between the two is much larger. 

There's a couple of interesting articles here by Chris Gibbins and here by Ian McKerchar which discuss this "thayeri" pattern (both open in a new window).

Green-winged teal, Chat Moss

It's always nice to see a green-winged teal, so I wasn't going to miss out on an opportunity to see one locally on Chat Moss. Viewing was difficult but in the end I managed to find it and it showed pretty well.

First little ringed plover of the year

My first little ringed plover of the year was on a muddy field near Winwick this morning.

Red kite and the first sand martins, Martin Mere

A red kite at Martin Mere today was only my second ever site record in 50 years of visiting the place. Also today, my first sand martins of the year with six over the mere, four adult Mediterranean gulls, at least 45 avocets plus the usuals.

Mediterranean gull.

Black scoter, Hoylake

Photo: Putative hybrid black x common scoter. 

This morning I was up early and walking across Hoylake beach at 6:30am. It was a glorious morning, with blue skies and wide open views across Liverpool Bay, but more importantly it was approaching low tide and this was virtually the only part of the day where I had any hope of seeing North Wirral's black scoter. 

This North American sea duck has been offshore here for about a week, associating with a few hundred common scoters and two hours either side of low tide is the only safe time to see it. It's a vast beach and I was walking out to the tideline which was over a mile (1.5km) offshore. You need to be sure of your tide times out here, because there are channels behind you which fill as the tide comes in and if you're not careful can leave you on a rapidly diminishing island of sand. Following the tide out is the safest way to do it but you still need to be extremely careful and aware of the state of the tide.

Eventually I reached the tideline and found many small groups of common scoter spread all over the sea, stretching away into the distance towards the wind farm. Some were just shimmering dots and identification of these birds was just impossible, even with a telescope. Fortunately though, an apparent trait of black scoter is the habit of staying close inshore so I was hopeful that it would be one of the closer birds, and so it proved, but not without much head scratching and mis-identifications!

Photo: Common scoter.

The first problem was that there were common scoter out there with far more yellow on the bill than I expected. So for example, compare the second and third birds from the right in the photo above, not only the bill patterns but also the head and bill shape. These birds were amongst the closest I saw all morning, but even so, they never stopped either bobbing up and down, diving or chasing each other, allowing just split second views and in these circumstances it would be easy to think that the second right bird must be the black scoter. I spent a lot of time videoing and photographing this flock before I realised my mistake.

Fortunately I spotted Sean, the original finder of the black scoter about 500m to the west of me and he seemed to be watching something so I headed over. It was indeed the black scoter that he had been watching for half an hour. It was alone and at close range but initially asleep when I arrived, however after 10 minutes or so it woke up. It had a large swollen blob of yellow on the bill and was very different to the earlier bird that I had tried to turn into black scoter. I was very happy with the identification. 

We watched it for another 10 minutes or so until finally it took off and flew east, more or less to where I had been standing earlier. I wish I'd left it there to be honest but I decided to walk back and try for another look and possibly get some photos. 

Red-crested Pochard, Scotsman's Flash

A nice drake red-crested pochard was on Scotsman's Flash at Wigan today.

Lesser white-fronted goose, Upper Thurnham

It's been a poor winter for geese in north west England in my opinion, with below average numbers of unusual species in amongst the flocks of pink-footed geese. However, in recent days pink-foot numbers have built up on the Fylde as birds from Norfolk begin to return to the area before heading north in the next week or so, and with them has come a wonderful adult lesser white-fronted goose. 

This is one of my favourite species of any bird, not just geese. They are the reason why Peter Scott set up the Wildfowl Trust (now Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust) following a visit to Slimbridge in 1945. He was using a war time pill box as a hide overlooking an area of marsh known as the Dumbles when he found two lesser white-fronted geese with a flock of 2000 Russian white-fronts. He decided almost there and then that this was the place for him to live and to be the headquarters of a new conservation organisation that he had been planning to setup. I recommend his book "The Eye of the Wind" which gives a very evocative description of this period.

Having read this book in my youth, I always wanted to see lesser white-fronts at Slimbridge, but sadly even though I visited a few times in the early 1980s when the species was still almost annual, I failed to see any. I've always considered Slimbridge the classic place to see the species and Russian white-fronts the classic carrier species.

It took until 1991 for me to see my first lesser white-front, with pink-footed geese at Martin Mere, but by that time we were already calling them "of unknown origin". 

The species has undergone steep declines in recent decades largely due to hunting in their eastern European and Asian wintering grounds. In an effort to save the species, conservationists in Sweden set up a release scheme which aims to change the migration pattern of the species by directing them towards Western Europe in winter rather than the east.

This is theoretically possible because unlike passerines, geese and swans learn to migrate from their parents by travelling to their wintering grounds in family flocks and the hope was that the Swedish birds would learn to travel west every autumn. 

I've haven't really followed the progress of this release scheme and don't know much about it or how successful it's been, but the theory sounds good. However, what it has left us with is three possibilities when it comes to the origin of this lesser white-front at Upper Thurnham. 

Swedish birds tend to overwinter in the Netherlands but this winter there have been higher numbers than usual wintering in the UK, including seven ringed birds at Flamborough Head and at least nine in Norfolk. Officially these birds are not "tickable", probably because they're not yet considered to be a self sustaining population. Today's bird could be from this population. 

Ferruginous duck, Woolston Eyes

Aythya diving ducks are very much underrated in my opinion, they're all really nice birds, with the drake ring-necked duck currently touring St Helens a perfect case in point. So is this drake Ferruginous duck which turned up on the Oxbow by the bridge to number 3 bed at Woolston Eyes today. It's assumed to be the same bird which was present last spring when it was accompanied by a female. My first ever Ferruginous duck was at Woolston Eyes in November 1984.