Went for a stroll round Marshside this afternoon - nice and quiet, amd quieter still when the afternoon mega-monsoon kicked in, but luckily I was in Nels by that time.
Clearly plenty of Pink Feet about - at least 350 grazing on Crossens Inner, with more flying in throughout the afternoon, and a clear increase in manky eclipse ducks too - Wigeon, Gadwall, Teal, Pintail, Shoveler, Mallard, all looking like they could do with a lick of paint.
A few Snipe probed the mud round Sandgrounders Hide, when they weren't throwing daft shapes.
Amongst the 100 or so Blackwits on Polly's Pool, there were between 10 and 15 Ruff and a single Dunlin, but no sign of any Yankee waders, despite the massive countrywide influx.
Sigh, one day....
The Sandplant compound held several parties of Meadow Pipit and two Wheatear, together with the autumn finch flock, and bizarrely, two Curlew.
Good numbers of hirundines were hawking along the banks, and a Little Egret was on the Junction Pool.
As I wandered down to Nels, the skies darkened and the deluge was unleashed on the strengthening south easterly moments after I got into the hide.
Plenty of Lapwing, Blackwits, a small gull roost and eight Pinkies from the hide, but it was all very murky in the impressive downpour.
One of the Blackwits was colour ringed, I'm pretty sure it was the bird Graham Clarkson sent the gen off on earlier in the week, but I include a blurry blow-up just in case.
With the rain bouncing off the hide, the water and the birds, even the Pinkies looked a bit uneasy - and they spend the summer in Iceland.
I waited awhile after the rain eased, sadly nothing out of the ordinary dropped in....but the autumn is still young.
Eyes to the skies everyone, eyes to the skies...
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Having had several relatively unsuccessful seawatches off Ainsdale over the past two weeks, I decided, despite the fairly mediocre Westerly to head down to Formby Point this afternoon and it didn't turn out too badly. There weren't many Terns, at least close enough in for id but the selection of birds I did get was reasonable.
15.15-16.30:
Great Skua 1
Manx Shearwater 1
Kittiwake 4
Gannet 2
Guillemot 1
Diver sp 3 (all in flight and rather distant)
Sandwhich Tern 5+
Common Tern 1
Mediteranean Gull ad w 1
Common Scoter c150
The Skua was a reasonable distance out, came in above the skyline from the south, banked, showed it's white primary flashes, dipped over the water and I lost it and that was that. There were masses of Scoter mainly in flight (at one point easily 100 in the air at once) out on the horizon but as time went on small groups were coming closer and closer. The med gull was a smart adult almost fully moulted into winter plumage on the waters edge down below where I was sat in the dunes. I got some terrible digiscope images of it!!
Also had a White Wagtail off Heathy Lane today and nipped in at Marshside for the usual suspects.
Also a Wheatear at Formby Point.
A deadly disease, responsible for a sudden decline in two familiar British garden birds, has now spread to Europe.
Trichomonosis first emerged in British finches in 2005 and has since caused local declines in populations of greenfinch and chaffinch, with greenfinch populations in some counties dropping by a third within a year of the disease emerging.
Research carried out by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and University of East Anglia (UEA), and a number of other leading scientific organisations across Europe, now suggests that chaffinches migrating from British shores to Fennoscandia transported the parasite responsible for causing the disease.
Large numbers of chaffinches spend the winter in Britain before taking flight from the eastern shores of England to breeding grounds in Fennoscandia every spring. Only small numbers of greenfinches migrate to Europe, framing chaffinches as the most likely transporters of the disease.
The research team carried out comparative molecular analysis on the parasite and found no difference between the parasite in European and British finches. Recent research has already revealed that finch species in Britain carry the same strain of the parasite.
Dr Rob Robinson from BTO says: “Information derived from ringed birds continues to provide crucial insight into behaviour, ecology and disease, as seen in this case with trichomonosis. This in turns plays an important role in the conservation of many of our best-loved garden birds.”
Birds suffering from trichomonosis often look lethargic and have fluffed-up feathers. They may also show signs of struggling to feed and have trouble breathing. The disease can occur at any time of the year but tends to peak during August and September.
The next research priority is to understand the spread and impact of this disease on bird populations across Europe.