Trawled the mosses yesterday and on Friday, in grey overcast conditions - there are few places I've seen that can match Plex for bleakness on a grim January afternoon, and the area fully lived up to expectations.
Two Whoopers out there with a small group of Pinks yesterday, and four of 'em on Friday,
Few Fieldfares round Station Road, with up to 40 Corn Buntings in the trees around Plex Moss Farm and feeding in the stubble field opposite.
Mistle Thrush in song.
Peregrine, Sprawk and Kestrel, with a few Buzzards loafing about, and a nice flock of about 50 Pied Wags with a few MIpits.
Counted no fewer than 27 Common Buzzard as I headed down the M57 and M62 to the M6 junction with Mrs D this morning on family business.
Otherwise a reasonable flock of 1,000 Pinkies opposite the Cheshire Lines track on Plex yesterday, but they were a field too far away to grill properly.
No sign of the Red Kite at Altcar while I was there.
Eyes to the skies everyone, eyes to the skies...
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Imm male Marsh Harrier, 3 Merlins and a Peregrine on or over the saltmarsh at Marshside/Crossens this afternoon. Regular Whitefronts and Barnacle Geese not present on the Inner Marshes today, but at least 4 of the former and 2 of the latter among c.3000 Pinkfeet on the saltings. 36 Ruffs among 1300 Lapwings on Crossens Inner
Formby Point seawatch, 0950-1240:
Common Scoter 350+
Red-breasted Merganser 7
Red-throated Diver 58
Great Crested Grebe 14
Guillemot 2
Razorbill 1
2 Nuthatches calling and chasing in trees by Freshfield Railway Station
Hi John,
Maybe you and your readers would be interested in a free public lecture at UCLAN I am organising for Darwin Day this Feb? It's about the intelligence of corvids - especially scrub jays, who are amazingly clever little blighters. Click on my name below to go to the website...
The School of Psychology is proud to present our seventh annual Darwin Day Celebration Lecture, to be given by Nicky Clayton of Cambridge University on Monday 13 February at 7.00pm. In "The Evolution of Intelligence in Birds and Apes", Prof Clayton will argue that corvids (members of the crow family including ravens, magpies and jays) are as clever as chimpanzees and other non-human primates, and that this represents a case of convergence in intelligence in these distantly related animals who shared a common ancestor over 300 million years ago.
www.uclan.ac.uk/darwin
Oh, and please tell Bazzo to get in touch - I haven't got his new email address!
Cheers