Greenshank, Pennington Flash

Autumn continues apace at the flash with a cracking summer plumage greenshank a surprise find on the spit this morning. It's  a really well marked individual, especially on its scapulars.

So that's returning greenshank, common sandpipers and (probably) dunlin, plus a juvenile black-necked grebe, and we're not even out of June yet!

Juvenile black-necked grebe, Pennington Flash

A juvenile black-necked grebe was off the ruck today, associating closely with the female tufted duck with nasal saddle CH1. Juveniles often visit the flash in summer from nearby breeding sites, but this is the earliest I have ever seen here by 3 weeks. Also 2 common sandpipers and 3 common terns.

White rock-rose, Brean Down

White rock-rose Helianthemum apenninum, is a very rare member of the Helianthemum family, occurring in only a handful of localities in the whole of the UK. In fact apart from two or three coastal locations in south Devon, the only other place it occurs in the country is Brean Head in Somerset, just south of Weston-Super-Mare. I've always had a soft spot for the Helianthemum family because of the wonderful displays of common and hoary rock-rose in North Wales, particularly on the Great Orme, so since I was in Somerset today with a free afternoon, it seemed an opportunity too good to miss.

White rock-rose is said to flower from May to July but as we've just had a long period of warm sunny weather I suspected that it might be over a little early this year and so it proved. However, I was able to find a few flowers in amongst the carpets of seed heads. What a sight it must have been when it was in full flower!

White-spotted bluethroat, Slimbridge

In recent weeks a singing male white-spotted bluethroat has returned for its third summer to Slimbridge WWT. It's often been elusive, showing very infrequently, bringing to mind the Martin Mere bird from 10 years ago which could go missing for several hours at a time and then show for a few seconds. However, in the past week it's habits have changed for some reason and it's become a bit easier to see, so I decided that today was the day to call in for a look, having driven past it on several occasions so far this year. A strong supporting cast also made the visit very appealing.

The bluethroat was at Middle Point which is only accessible via the Summer walkway footpath and this was the first time I had been out on the estuary at Slimbridge. The bird showed well about four times in the 90 minutes or so that I was there at a distance of about 80m. It was a decent view through the scope and I could clearly hear it singing with it's tail cocked as it sang. This is only the second white-spotted bluethroat I have seen in the UK, the last was at Martin Mere and was also singing, almost exactly 10 years ago to the day.

It's been a great year for black-winged stilts in the UK with several pairs breeding at a number of sites including at least one pair in Yorkshire, but this is an unpaired single bird. I even found two on the spit at Pennington Flash two weeks ago, but there's no habitat there for them to breed.

Now it is autumn

Now I can truly say that autumn has arrived at Pennington Flash, with four common sandpipers on the spit.

A migrant at the Flash but is it spring or autumn?

This morning there was a really smart looking summer plumage dunlin on the end of the spit. It was a very bright bird with a grey head and nape contrasting with the rufous mantle, leading me to believe that it might be a male of the northern race alpina which would probably mean that it's a late spring migrant heading north. On the other hand it could be a failed breeder of the more usual UK race schinzii heading south which would make it the first passage wader of the autumn at the flash. Not sure what happened to summer....

Thanks to a tip off from a friend I was ready and waiting for this great white egret to fly over the ruck.

There are plenty of juvenile black-headed gulls around the spit at the moment, which is good to see given the amount of corpses lying around which died from bird flu.

White-letter hairstreak, St Helens

White-letter hairstreak occur rarely in St Helens largely due to the rarity of the host tree, elm. However they can be found in a few places and today I called in at one of the sites and counted at least six flying around the tops of the trees and for some reason occasionally landing on a hawthorn bush. Due to them usually staying high, they're difficult enough to see let alone photograph, and this picture is a phone scoped video grab.

Black guillemot, Hilbre Island

I didn't realise that oystercatchers were such shrinking violets, I always considered them quite noisy and bold, even aggressive, but today on Hilbre I watched a goose stepping, diminutive, black guillemot terrorise a whole flock of them! 

The bird has for some reason attached itself to the oystercatcher flock and is not shy of asserting itself. When they are on the rocks it roosts with them and flies with them like they are the best of pals, but if it needs to move because of the approaching tide or some other disturbance, it scatters its new friends in all directions by walking towards them, chest puffed out, head held low and flapping it's wings at them to reveal the white under wing and white upper wing patches. It's a bizarre thing to watch. Apparently the last long staying bird, which was around 30 years ago, behaved in a similar way.

Their diets are obviously very different, oystercatchers remove molluscs from their shells, black guillemots dive in the sea for fish, so it must go off by itself at times, but not once today did I see it fishing. It seems healthy enough though, in full breeding plumage with slightly pale primary feathers which seem to indicate that it's a 2nd summer bird and not a full adult. 

Black guillemots are an almost annual visitor to Hilbre but usually they are just fly pasts so difficult to connect with. The nearest breeding that I know of is on the Great Orme which is around 40km west as the black guillemot flies. This was a Merseyside tick for me bringing my total to 280 species. 

A pair of avocets, Pennington Flash

A brief mid-afternoon visit in sweltering heat produced a pair of avocets on the end of the spit today. It's amazing to think that these days avocets barely raise an eyebrow amongst birders, yet this is still only my third record of the species at the flash and they are the latest in an ever increasing list of impressive birds at the site this month. So far in June we've had serin (not seen by me), black-winged stilts, avocets, great white egret, black tern, red kite and Mediterranean Gulls. What next?

Covering the cock-up

Yesterday morning I was walking along the main footpath just before Horrock's hide when a white egret flew over just above tree height. My initial reaction was "Oh there's the little egret that has been hanging around recently".

There's not a lot of sky visible here and I had about 2 seconds or less to react, raise my binoculars and have a look at the egret before it disappeared behind the trees. Just about the only thing I had time to notice was that the bird had an orangey / yellow bill and dark feet. Then it was gone. Probably because I had been expecting it to be the little egret I apparently misjudged the size and identified it as a cattle egret. It sounds ridiculous now, but that's the way it is.

Then this morning Bill and Barry had a great white egret on the spit....🤦🤷‍♂️

With the benefit of hindsight, from the picture I have in my mind of the orangey / yellow bill yesterday, it was clearly a great white egret and not a cattle egret. The bill was too long.

Oh well, onwards and upwards.

Also this morning a (grey) cuckoo flew from the south side and over Horrock's hide. It seems likely that cuckoos have actually bred at the flash this year and not just passed through. I can't say that todays bird was definitely a male, but it was obviously a different bird to that seen two days ago which was for sure a rufous female. There's been a male singing on and off for a week or two which doesn't seem to be in any great rush to leave  and this could be it. Given that it's now mid-June and adult cuckoos usually leave the country early after egg laying, it seems possible that they are here to stay for the summer.

Rufous female cuckoo and a thunderstorm

I called in briefly at the flash this afternoon on my way to do the weekly shop and saw first a rufous female cuckoo fly over Horrock's followed by a little egret.