With an afternoon so crisp and sunny there was no other option but to rapidly develop chore amnesia and get out for a walk before the sun went down.
Had just enough time to walk round Sands Lake at Ainsdale, where the Brown Rats were feeding in the Sea Buckthorn bushes on the fermented berries again by the boardwalk.
They looked quite cute actually, but were probably just drunk on the orange fruits.
Magpies (17), Greenfinch, 2 Long Tailed Tits, Wren and Robins were in the buckthorn too.
On the water there were about 110 Tufties, 2 drake Pochard, 6 Shoveler (4 drakes and 2 ducks), the usual family of 8 Mute Swans, Moorhen, Coot and hordes of Mallards.
The drake Shovelers were fruitier than the buckthorn bushes - constantly whistling and wheezing round the two ducks.
Best of all was a nice Water Rail which ran across the duckboards in front of me on the eastern side of the pool, before squealing from cover.
My Daily Post column tomorrow is about all sorts of stuff, but also the North Merseyside Biodiversity website, which has been revamped and with a bit of delving, is full of info.
You can find it at http://www.merseysidebiodiversity.org.uk
Gotta go now, it's chore time.
Eyes to the skies everyone, eyes to the skies....
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Gary wrote...
Hi John these water rail seem to be fairly rare I still havent spotted one for a long time. There used to be a pair at Pennington Flash in Leigh but havent been seen for a while.
Went to Martin Mere today quite a suprise it was free admission but i bought a guide book for the good cause.The birds were already picking and gaurding their nest boxes like their lives depended on it.
Still plenty of Ruff about wading on the main lake and a few redshank in amongst them.
Spotted the Marsh Harrier and Peregrine dive bombing the Lapwings.The peregrine then decided they weren't big enough and decided to have a go at the harrier.
Still not managed to see the resident Kingfisher these are also getting more scarce.
Anyway a good day till Geoff my good friend said he had to get home early ,his wife had also left him his chores.I would have prefered the £5 3 course lunch in the pub on the way home and not tell the wife about the free entrance to the mere.
Posted by: Gary | February 2, 2007 6:38 PM