Met up with Bazzo after he'd done the WeBs count for Marshside 1 (7,000 Wigeon), and we headed north from the Sandplant towards Crossens.
Still a fair bit of frozen water on the inland side, but 4 or more Little Egrets were back on the outer marsh, and Merlin and Kestrel were hunting.
A few thousand Pinkies were strung out along the marsh, mostly grazing in the deeper vegetation, but the Barnacles still stuck out like a sore thumb and one of the Brents (a pale-bellied bird) was on Crossens Outer.
All fairly long distance for digi-scoping though.
An adult Peregrine was drying its wings out Cormorant style while Pinkies fed around it, and the Blackwit and Wigeon flocks are starting to build up again after the big freeze.
I wondered how many birders had headed up to Marton Mere today for the "probable" American Bittern?
God's holy trousers, it's nearly 20 years since the very accommodating bird there - still a happy memory though.
Barn Owl hunting on Plex Moss later in the afternoon, but not much else there.
Eyes to the skies everyone, eyes to the skies...
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Ice and snow have only just gone and frogs are already stirring up the mud in my garden pond and one of the local Magpies overhead having difficulty flying whilst carrying a 4 foot stick!. A lone Fieldfare spent a week in the garden in the snowy weather but since the thaw has been replaced by a much darker aggressive individual who spends much of his time attacking the 9 garden Blackbirds in between scoffing apples.
Hi John no show of the American Bittern upto 4.15 pm Sunday, but a good bust up with our birds pics on my flickr . Up to 4 Leos and 1 Cettis flying from hide to hide also 3 Water Rail + one cold footed frog on the ice .
Howzit Brickus Maximus.
'Outer Limits' experience on Sunday last with Mike TICKBOY Stocker, June MEGA Watt, Peter SLAGBOY Allen (Slag is Swedish and Dutch for hit/punch) and John BANKSBOYHAVE EYES Mercer.
Ventured with nervous trepidation onto the Fylde, the 'disputed territories' as we know them and we we're indeed fortunate not to come across any activity from the Fylde Birders Front; The Fylde Front for Birds and Birding; the Marton Mere Action Front not to be confused with the Martin Mere Friends InAction Front or indeed the Preston Peoples Perambulatory Guild. Whew!@
No sign of course of Bitterns of any variety, but did have a MEGA on the way in. Came off the M55 motorway slip road and grazing at the edge of the road was a GIANT rabbit/hare/capybara thingy with a pocket at the front and long floppy ears. It was a WALLABY and its going on my Lancs mammal tick list at last after dipping on one up in the hills, some 20 years back.
Also going on my Lancs bird tick list are the four very friendly RED-NECKED PARAKEETS at Lymm Cemetery. Particularly at the request of the one called Pollyanna, who landed on my left shoulder and nibbled my right ear lobe in a delightfully self-sustaining manner.
Also OML and underlined with my Red Rose Radio red biro is the immaculately conceived drake MANDARIN at Preston Grasshoppers, which is three-winged (or should that be free) I was reliably informed and definitely countable. Anyway he was obviously wildly happy to be swimming around his home pond/puddle and as ALL gulls and ducks come for a free handout, why should he not join the tame Mallards to do the same.
Megaday with two and a half Bird ticks (only heard Cetti's) plus a antipodean marsupial to boot!
Go well ... but please do go.
John MADDOG Bannon (sounds Welsh now)
PS: In a serious vein, I would like to point out the following to Yankeee Bittern pooh-poohers.
Both previous records are from Marton Mere - 8th December 1845 (Harry Shorrock saw it) and 24th January until 12th May 1991. The last bird was briefly seen in flight and correctly identified by a single observer on 24th January, BUT not seen again until the 2nd February, when ice and snow forced it out into the open.It stayed until 12th May, but often went missing for long periods.
Do not adjust your set ! Strange things may be happening - remember the Belted Kingfishers in Cornwall - like them, perhaps American Bitterns just keep coming back every 100 years or so, down the Birding Space Time Continueum Wormhole Thingy - to a mysterious place once known to Merlin as The Gefilde.
Female Red Crested Pochard, north end of Southport Marine Lake today. 2 wings, no rings.
19/1/10: Formby Point seawatch, 1050-1310:
Red Throated Diver 48
Great Crested Grebe 27
Goldeneye 2
Scaup 5
Common Scoter 450+
Thanks to a friend at work for pointing me here.
Well am a Fylde Coaster and not a member of the Fylde Coast Front for Birds... and other words that I cannot say on a website. But would just like to say I know your pain, I have had 2 run ins with people from this so called club...cult, both not to pleasant basically being ignorant and refusing to comment on a bird I had seen and trying to protect it from my site in a PUBLIC PARK!!!! Idiots!!!
American Bittern... no, Eurasian Bittern yes. Must admit though the PROBABLE sighting had made my Sunday morning a nightmare due to the mere being packed. But thanks to some NON Fylde Coast Gestapo for pointing out the LEO's, very nice people indeed.
I can remember, many many years ago, my elderly (well "old" then) Southport female relatives commenting about how "common" things and people and places (they had Blackpool in mind) from the Fylde were.
Over 50 years later I see no reason to disagree with them.
I have bird watched over this time at Marton Mere and Lytham St Annes once and Freckleton Sewage Farm three times.
A terrible wince on seeing the illustration on the dust wrapper of The Birds Of Lancashire (and N Merseyside), a figment of some deluded Fylde imagination! Full of Anglo XL maybe,
Ron
Oh lawdy Mad Dog! Look at what you've started!!!
Personally I've never had a problem on Fylde...
Still trying to work through the Mad Dog's outpourings. I'd stay clear of the Fylde for a while now, John. The bit about the Parakeets intrigued me, though: could it be Ring-necked (or Rose-ringed) Parakeets, and in Lytham, not Lymm, Cemetery?