The big hooley forecast just didn't hit early enough today - I checked out Crosby Marina and the Mersey mouth at dawn with Jellyhead - nothing apart from a few Kittiwakes and the usual Cormorants in the river and waders on the beach.
Any Leach's Petrels that were lingering had clearly sneaked off out to sea in the calm overnight weather - they were probably halfway to the Isle of Man.
This is annoying as the wind is starting to pick up again as I'm writing this, so there's always a chance of another Leach's wreck this week, or even tomorrow.
A gusty southerly and rain made taking pics virtually impossible, but there were about eight Goldeneye on Crosby Marina, including two males and a female on the boating pond at the top end, plus two female-type Scaup on the main lake.
The Goldeneyes kept diving amongst the gulls, so my pics were particularly crap.....
Both unimpressed, Jellyhead drove us back up the coast and we tried a seawatch in constant rain off Formby Point - as you can see, the southerly breeze flattened out the sea, and apart from a few close in flocks of Common Scoter, two Kittiwakes and more Cormorants, there was nowt about.
You can't win 'em all.
Anyone go to the marsh today?
Anyone see anything?
Eyes to the skies everyone, eyes to the skies......
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Hi John
Took a stroll along the embankment from the pumping station at Fiddler's Ferry to Old Hollow Farm at first light ...
A redwing in the rectangular copse parallel to Charnley's Lane on the way out, and kestrel on the way back, with loads of pinkfeet in the field just south of the copse and a couple of very vocal redshank in the ditch by the farm.
But from the farm (the shed/hide was locked and it was getting quite fierce by now) there were thousands of wigeon in the pools on the marsh, with a few golden plover, thousands of lapwing, hundreds of shelduck, dozens of mallard, and a couple of glimpses of something smaller - probably dunlin but who knows, everything was shaking and blurred (I hadn't been drinking) and disappeared very quickly when I moved from bins to scope to get a closer look.
Good sized flocks of linnets, greenfinch and chaffinch too, with regular spookings from a GBB that was decidedly hunting.
Plenty of black-headed and herring gulls.
Retracing our steps, a pair of little egrets were just off to our right, with one very confiding bird allowing us good views of its yellow feet from no more than 20 yards away. Back near the road a sizeable flock of barnacles were enjoying the smell of rotting brassicas off the fields.
Down at Sandgrounders 64 barnacles and 2 barnacle x canada hybrids were the main attraction, with plenty of snipe around too.
A fleeting merlin and a couple of kestrels, plus another little egret in the pools north of the Sandplant was enough for the day.
Ta Simon,
I trust Martin Mere has asked for its feral barnies back by now...good to know the egrets are still holding their own in the fresh December weather, I bet they're really glad they thought of moving north.