I really should know better by now - a cold, grey afternoon, with rain threatening, and the tide long since peaked - this is not the best time for a winter seawatch from Ainsdale beach.
But I went anyway, and while the sea was fairly calm, and the light not too bad (for about 15 minutes at least), the sea was distinctly quiet (quelle surprise!)
Up to 20 Common Scoters and a flock of 7 Goldeneye amongst the Cormorants and winter gulls kept my mind off the stupidity of not wearing gloves in January, but then I had to get moving, so went to scan through the roosting gulls.
Not as many as earlier in the week when the wind was really blowing, but still a coloured ringed sub-adult Black Headed Gull amongst the throng (left leg, yellow ring, number: 2470) and a Lesser Black Back with a yellow colour ring too, but I just couldn't read the sequence on that one.
Increasing numbers of BHGs are starting to form summer hoods now.
Sanderling, Curlew and Oycs in the channels.
Walking back up the beach I bumped into the five Snow Buntings again, this time hoovering around the sand at the base of the dunes directly in line with the Ainsdale Discovery Centre.
So that you don't have to endure anymore of my blurred dusk pictures of the little critters, here's a belting shot courtesy of Andy Bate (links to his site in the, er, links section) of one of the birds taken in proper daylight yesterday.
Thanks Andy.
And thanks too to Jack Isherwood, who sent me these shots of an aberrant male Blackbird near Southport Crematorium - freaky freaky...
Don't know of much else, although the Bittern seen in the Rimrose Valley in Bootle on Sunday must have been pretty cool - nice one Eugene!
Eyes to the skies everyone, eyes to the skies...
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Hi John,
This morning 21-1-09 - a small flock of five Goldcrest in the grounds of Southport Hospital. Mike.
Good close views of 35 Twite at Weld Road shore, Birkdale this afternoon. They seem to be getting tamer!
Also a Jack Snipe and 6 Common Snipe nearby.
A few hundred gulls further south included a very large dark Common Gull, presumably of eastern origin.
Can anyone do anything with these?
Coincidentally Phil I was looking at a big, dark Common Gull amongst the gulls off Shore Road this afternoon!
I did a bit of surfing to find out more about the races, but didn't end up much more the wiser.
This business of "eastern" Common Gull is mighty tricky - they obviously get larger and darker mantled as the races go further east if you see what I mean...
The extreme eastern form is the race "heinei".
Clearly light conditions will play a part in how dark a Common Gull looks, but the extreme ones are reported to be almost as dark as an LBB, with heavy streaking on the head and breast and a longer primary projection than "our" Common Gull.
They are a much bigger, heavier bird than our Common too.
Unless you had one "in the hand", I suspect getting one accepted could be a nightmare of humungous proportions...
Hi John.
Sefton Coast and Countryside called to tell me about this oil spill that has been reported on Southport.gb; Let's hope it isn't to serious!
Oil Spill - Ainsdale Beach Closed
A clean up operation will get underway tomorrow morning (Friday 23rd January 2009) following an oil spill incident in Liverpool Bay earlier today.
The beach will be closed along the coastline from Ainsdale to Formby.
A contamination team of up to 40 personnel have already been deployed to the area ready to clear up any droplets of oil that comes up on the next high tide.
At least two Bramblings on moss in field at end of Pool Hey Lane yesterday in large finch flock. Bin there for a while by the sounds of it.