You'd think a bird able to hang in the air like a Kestrel would know all about balance, but the young male that's hunting around Birkdale dunes this winter had real problems today.
As is often the way when we're clearing scrub it swept in close, hovering like a good 'un for an easy meal disturbed by our work, but after striking out twice it swept in to land on a willow about 30 feet from us across a frozen slack.
For a nano-second it managed to look reasonably cool in the bright morning sun, but the branch was too slender and began swaying up and down, with the Kestrel gripping on for dear life with its chrome yellow feet (get some socks on).
Amused me anyway on a day when the dunes were fairly quiet.
An older and wiser bird would have chosen a sturdier perch - or used its wings to steady itself.
The Kestrel redeemed itself by grabbing a vole 15 minutes or so later.
Otherwise the slacks were deathly - doesn't seem to have been much of a berry crop this winter, a situation reflected by the presence of just a few titmice, Wren, Robin and a pair of Bullfinch - about what you'd expect in there in January I suppose.
Small roost of Goldfinch seems to be developing out there, which I haven't come across before.
And a good Short Eared Owl hunting around the Coast Road mid-afternoon, when the Magpies weren't hot on its tail.
Eyes to the skies everyone, eyes to the skies...
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Hi John, I was at Birkdale yesterday though didn't get as far in as that. Plenty of common birds in the birch wood near the main path though nothing unusual, especially tits with a lot of the Blues seemingly paired up already. Around the north edge of the Golf Course and 'Birkdale Common' as some call it there were a couple of Blackcap which is usual there and some Thrushes, not the numbers of winter Thrushes as most winters, with just 3 Fieldfare, but quite a few Song Thrush in the area. A Linnet was singing today near Kew which is the first i've heard this year.
Every year around 12.5 million waterbirds spend the winter months in the UK, many coming here from as far away as Greenland and Siberia and at least one individual has been making the trip for forty years.
February 2, 2012 is World Wetlands Day, on which the importance of the global network of waterways and wetlands is celebrated. According to the latest Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS) report, compiled by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) on behalf of RSPB, JNCC and in association with WWT, the UK has 211 wetland sites that hold internationally important numbers of waterbirds. Two of the most important of these are The Wash, on the coasts of Lincolnshire and Norfolk, which supports almost 400,000 waterbirds each winter, and the Ribble Estuary in Lancashire, where almost a quarter of a million birds can be found.
Some of the birds that come to the UK’s wetlands for a winter holiday have been doing so for many years. The longevity records for some of them make for interesting reading. An Oystercatcher trapped and fitted with a ring on the shores of The Wash was recaught in almost exactly the same place forty years, one month and two days later, and a Greenshank ringed at Farlington Marshes, Hampshire was recaught at the same site sixteen years and three days after it was first released, both becoming the oldest of their kind to be recorded in the UK. For more information, please visit http://blx1.bto.org/ring/countyrec/results2010/longevity.htm
A Water Rail was viewable along with 1 Snipe from the Sandgrounders hide, Marshside.
Also 5 Black Tailed Godwit, Shoveler, Teal, Wigeon and 2 Pintail also close to the hide on the unfrozen water.