Leaden grey sky in between the cold rain, grey mudflats, brown marsh - boy you know when November comes!
Popped down to Marshside this afternoon around dusk, more for some fresh air than anything else.
Up to 8 Little Egrets on Marshside Two, with a patchy carpet of grazing Wigeon stretching from Crossens down to Hesketh Road, Pintail, Shoveler, Gadwall, Teal etc.
A juv male Ruddy Duck moulting into adult plumage on the Sandplant pool, and small flocks of Blackwits, Lapwing and Goldies zipping about, with a few Ruff here and there.
Could just be me, but there seem to be fewer Shelducks around at the moment, even allowing for winter movements. A Magpie or two were foraging in front of the Sandgrounders Hide, but disappointingly, there was no sign of the Water Rail...
On the outer marsh a dashing Merlin livened things up a bit and there were about 1,000 Pink Feet down near the mudlfats, until they were spooked by a helicopter.
Single Stonechat on the fenceposts north of the remains of the Sandplant compound and Skylarks and Meadow Pipits here and there.
A hunting Kestrel looked woefully bedraggled in the fading light, I wished it luck and headed for home.
Eyes to the skies everyone, eyes to the skies...
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I have to say I had thought only last weekend how few Shelduck there have been around Birkdale beach recently.
80+ Whoopers on Plex this afternoon otherwise dull and quiet.
Hi John
Just in case you didn't know, Cattle Egrets bred in Somerset this year joining Little Egret as a Breeding Bird of Little Britain.
I heard 27 Redwing seeps on my ten-minute perambulation with Teddy around the block. As you know, applying BPRCF (Bannon's Patented Redwing Counting Formula), just this one nocturnal birding session (cf doggie walking) proves without doubt, that at least 42 million Redwings pass over Churchtown on late Autumn migration. Obviously, the odd one might double back and be heard seeping again, but that's not a problem, as my scientifically proven formula, takes this kind of sneaky avian behaviour fully into account.
Apparently, Barrack Hussein Obama is a birder and on his early morning jogs around Central Park has seen over 100 species. However he did not record the formerly abundant Passenger Pigeons, Carolina Parakeets and Eskimo Curlew, as Mrs 'Armanispecs' Palin and her ilk had graciously dispatched them all.
Thermals on at dawn on Wednesday, for (probably) the last seawatch of the season. Could be good after 3 days' westerlies; on the other hand, I might just die.
In reply to Pete Marsh's query about the Steppe Grey Shrike, it certainly tried to feed, flying down to the ground on many occasions, but such was the pressure from assembled plonkers, many of them wielding lenses as long as an 88mm gun, that it had to fly up again almost immediately. I didn't actually see it eat anything, but I guess it must have done, or it wouldn't have lasted three days so far.