The ton is up

The Safari left you on a cliffhanger at the end of our last blog, would we or wouldn't we get 100 species of birds photographed by the end of January. Well it's now the end of the first week of February and we're on 103 but have been plagued by two weeks of seriously grotty weather...did we or didn't we...read on...

Desperate for a safari away from our usual haunts with some better shelter we had Pennington Flash near Wigan suggested to us. Now we've not been there since 2019 mostly due to the fear of getting caught in humungous motorway traffic jams on the way back to Base Camp at the end of the day. These road works have been going on for years now and we have been stuck in them on non-safari days, once for five hours! So you can understand our reluctance to venturte that way...But after umming and ahhing at IH's suggestion we plugged the post code into the sat nav and knock us down with a feather it suggested an alternative route we could have been using in all those intervening years...dohhhhh. We picked up CR without further ado and followed the sat nav's very easy route to our destination with IH turning up from the Southside a few minutes later.

A bitterly cold strong wind was blowing across the lake but we headed for the shelter of the wooded areas passing a well watched Siskin in a bankside Alder tree.

The Feeding Station was awash with Grey Squirrels, at least a dozen of them. There was plenty of food for the birds but with that many squirrels gorging themselves on it it wasn't going to last very long...and there was a similar number of Mallards enticed off the adjecent pond by the copius free handout too. The smaller birds flitted in and out as best they could when the opportunites arose.

But there was no sign of the one we really wanted to see, the local Willow Tits. After a very enjoyable lengthy watch we moved on down an extremely muddy track to the next hide passing another small feeding station of four small bird tables secreted in the edge of the scrub. This was very active with Blue, Great and Coal Tits but still no Willow Tits. The hide overlooks a fairly large pool with an island in the middle much favoured by the local Goosanders.

Everything else on the pool was tucked up in the margins on the far side Tufted Ducks, a couple of Pochards, Little Grebes, Teal, a few Shoveler and Mallard, a nice selection of waterfowl. A Wren acted like a mouse along the side of the ditch below the hide window diappearing under the thick layer of fallen grass in the hunt for whatever invertebrates it could find but no Kingfishers were perched on the ditchside twigs nor flew along it. Continuing our circuit the wooded areas were indeed pleasantly sheltered but sadly lacking in birdlife. The next hide was good though with eight Herons stood on the bankwith one Little Egret, it's not often you see more herons than egrets these days. Then a flash of blue shot by followed by a second and this one perched in a nearby tree but well hidden by intervening twigs and branches requiring that scariest of photographic techniques - manual focus!

Not the best but Kingfisher became bird #94, Little Grebe at the previous hide would have been had it not been so far away as to only about three pixels in the frame. By now it was lunch time so back to our vehicles to collect the butties/pies etc. Lunch was devoured at the small hide we'd not visited on the morning lap. It overlooks a different part of the pool we saw the Kingfisher and probaly one of the same two from early appeared in a slightly more open position in a nearby bush.

From there it was round to the Feeding Station again, crossing our fingers that Willow Tit would turn up. None did although there were plenty of Reed Buntings to keep us entertained

It was soon time to have another look at those small bird tables. The usual suspects were still there.

And then...BINGO...a Willow Tit appeared...#95

Followed soon after by a Great Spotted Woodpecker annoyingly keeping round the back of the tree at first

Before showing itself in all its glory...#96

Discression is the better part of valour so it is said and this time we left the little feeding station by the way we came instead of traipsing through the thick mud again. This time the 'Goosander Island' Hide came up trumps with the Little Grebes now more active and had moved a lot closer although still a bit distant for 'proper' shots.

Leaving the Goosanders to their island

we moved on passing a tiny pool, not much more tha na puddle really which was well illuminated by the afternoon sun. "It would be good if a Kingfisher was sitting on those well lit branches" said CR not realising a few feet away in the gloomy side of the pool there was one!

We edged forwards as stealthily as possible

The pics would have been so much better had the bird been sat 20 feet to the left. We managed to get a couple of passers-by on to it too which was good. Continuing on in to the sheltrered wooded area either CR or IH spotted a Siskin high in the tops of the trees but we couldn't find it and before we'd finished searching one of them had spotted a Goldcrest low in the trees on the opposite side of the track. This was in the better light...at times!

A nice bonus for #98 as we'd missed one up Beacon Fell a couple of days earlier.

We had another look from the hide where we first saw the Kingfisher and this time watched a female Bullfinch acrobatically stripping buds from a Hawthorn tree close to where the Kingfisher had been sat erlier.

As time was now pressing and it was getting gloomier by the minute there was just enough time for a last look at the little bird tables. We did see another Willow Tit but it was in and out too fast for us.

And then like this Nuthatch it was time for us to leave.

Another great safari in the bag, loads seen and another few added to the Challenge tally; now standing at 98 with five days left, surely we can get the last two in that time...but the weather had other ideas and poor conditions kept us stuck at Base Camp although we did bump into another Snow Bunting while walking the dog yes you've guessed it - no camera! It wasn't until the penultimate day of  the year we were able to get out for an impromptu safari picking up CR on the way to Middleton up north. The sun was shining and we had the morning ahead of us. Arriving on site CR said he could see our target even before we'd drawn the car to a stop...Glossy Ibis - not a bad 'from the car' tick. After getting out of said car we couldn't see it for a while - we were looking too far away and the bird was hidden behind a fence rail. But then there it was in all its multi-coloured finery shimmering the sunshine.

What a beauty for #99 but could we get the ton up today? With a bit of  time to spare we had a look at the nearby Heysham nature reserve and Red Rocks while giving the pooch a bit of a run at the same time. It was deadly quite apart from a singing Chaffinch, the first we've heard this year. We were hoping for something like a Jackdaw or maybe the Brent Geese on the rocks but the tide was out there and there were very few birds within any sort of range. Maybe we should havev gone round to Half  Moon Bay but unfortunately we didn't have enough time and had to high tail it back to Base Camp with the tally stuck on 99 with one day to go. That evening we saw two Snow Buntings fly into the remnant dunes on the prom in the very last of the daylight, we tried to get a phone pic of one of them but it flitted off to somewhere unseen before we'd got the phone out of our pocket...One day to get one species - we had a plan!

The 31st was an average grey sort of a January day without much wind thankfully. We loaded up the camera, dog, and half a loaf of bread and headed to the shopper's car park in the nearby village of Poulton-le-Fylde. St Chad's church is a well known Jackdaw haunt. We did see some on a roof top not far from Base Camp while en route but the pics weren't great, it's a bit awkward pointing a long lens towards bedroom windows while sttod beside a busy road.

We'd got our ton, happy days, but could do with a better pic so we carried on to Poulton where the Jackdaws were indeed in the churchyard and showing much better than the roadside ones earlier.

One of them even got to sample the bait we'd brought just in case...

Mission accomplished 100 species of birds photographed during January and with about 6 hours of daylight to spare - Result!!!

And then reality hit home. All that hard work will mean progreesing with our Challenge during February and into March isn't going to be easy, we've sort of shot ourselves in the foot a bit. Well we've got to give the other challengers time to catch up before the summer visitors arrive in the spring.

Target for February will be 15 and only 5 more for March...how will we fare?

 

Where to next? Another safari northwards beckons.  

In the meantime let us know who's got the taste for bread in your outback.

The annual safari to the east coast - Day 2

The Safari lay in bed listen to the wind rushing through the tree tops outside the window as the fierst glimmers of dawn came through the curtains. Not what we wanted to hear, that south westerly was still blowing far too strong, nothing, or very little, would have left Scandinavia headed in our direction over night.

After a hearty breakfast we copped for Rooks, Stock Doves and Collared Doves in and around our temporary Base Camp for our Trip List, before setting off back to the point. Where to stop first? Being on the north side of the gas works we had to pass Vicar's Lane...and run the gauntlet of being snooped on by various police vehicles. Well it would rude not to stop wouldn't it...and there'd been a Firecrest there the previous morning. As soon as we got out of the car we bumped into a mobile flock of Long Tailed Tits, a good start...what would be with them??? The answer was lots of Blue Tits, several Great Tits, quite a few Goldcrests and some Chiffchaffs. It wasn't long before the first of the police vehicles came by to check us out, they soon saw we were harmless birders more interested in the bushes than the massive industrial complex behind us, although IH did point his bins in that direction when a couple of Meadow Pipits came in off the sea and landed on the top of the inner security fence...risky move...by IH not the Meadow Pipits. Along the lane we also had our first Blackbirds of the trip bar the one that flew in front of the car as dawn was breaking yesterday, there were about a dozen very mobile birds in the trees lining the lane. Also in there were several Robins and a few Wrens, again almost unbelievably our firsts of the trip. Overhead and around the corner bushes were small numbers of Chaffinches and Greenfinches and a Blackcap. We spotted a lovely Lesser Whitethroat but on closer inspection it turned out to be one of those caterpillar nests in the back of the bush...dohhh worrra numpty!

Failing to find anything out of the ordinary we hit the road down to the point stopping at the Canal Scrape first. As soon as we entered the hide we were put on to a very well hidden Snipe

and an even more well hidden Jack Snipe.

About a dozen Little Egrets graced the pool. While most of trhe others left for the saltmarsh one landed right by the Jack Snipe and spooked it into even deeper cover. Eventually the egret stalked off and the Jack Snipe plucked up enough courage to have a little preen and then a mooch about in their typical bobbing 'sewing machine' fashion, but it never managed to break cover no matter how much the collective bodies in the hide willed it  to.

There was a small patch of unobscured mud just to the left of this pi.c but our little friend simply refused to venture out on to it.

The Little Grebe was still on the pool, the Moorhen numbers had gone up by 50% since yesterday to three and we heard a Water Rail - yep it was quiet! Apart from the two noisy Cetti's Warblers either side of the path to the hide.

Exhausting the possiblities and looking at the weather wit hsome likely rain coming our way it was off to the seawatching hide, at least there we would be sheltered for an hour or so. It turned out to be a good move. Yesterday we'd been told of Bottlenose Dolphins passing by early morning, and they had done the same today. Would we or wouldn't we stike it lucky? A couple of Grey Seals weren't too far out.

But other than those there wasn't much to look at, The same(?) close Red Throated Divers as yesterday and several passing south mostly singles, a few Guillemots and fewer Razorbills bobbed about on the choppy sea while passing over them were more Sandwich and Common Terns. A birder came into the hide and told us we'd missed the best bird of the morning, an Osprey had flown south behind us half an hour earlier. Steadfastly we stared at the sea picking up a flock of 12 incoming Wigeon, a distant small flock of Common Scoters, a couple of Great Crested Grebes heading south together, and a few juvenile Gannets which were good to see given the appaling losses the species has suffered to Avian Flu over the last couple of breeding seasons. Small bird-wise nothing much at all was on the move a few Swallows tazzed past the window and a couple ofr more flocks of Goldfinches which we assumed were local birds doing a curcuit but given the Observatory log reported 2914 passing through for the day maybe they weren't locals after all!

While staring out to sea hoping for a big flock of ducks or perhaps a Great Northern Diver or a skua or two (of different species please) to come trundling by we thought we saw a 'wrong' big splash in the corner of our eye way out towards the turbines, we scanned the area for several minutes and saw nothing, so 'just' a weird wave-slap or something? No it was better than that - a few minutes later a large black shape made a big splash in our scope, not another Grey Seal this one had a dorsdal fin...a huge bull Bottlenose Dolphin! LCV was able to fire off a few shots as it powered its way hastily northwards.

The next thing that happened was even more bizarre, remember the mystery hirundine from yesterday evening - well news broke of a Nightjar up by the pub - SCRAMBLE - GO- GO- GO!!! Was the lad from yesterday right with his 'tentative' ID, a lucky guess, sold his soul, or just pure coincidence??? Anyway we legged it to the car threw the gear in a hurtled up the road...only to find it had gone between the finder finding it and going to get a radio to put the news out. In the grotty weather we throughth it wouldn't have gone far. Time to put LCV's rinky-dink Thermal Imaging gizmo to work again (especially as it hadn't been needed to find the Jack Snipe at the Canal Scrape). No joy from using either the bins nor the Thermal Imager, our bins found a late nesting Woodpigeon

and LCV's Thermal Imager fund a well secreted Robin in the 'Nightjar' bush and another nestingWoodpigeon over the road in the pub carpark trees. 

With no sign of the rarity the small croud soon dispersed leaving a couple of hard core locals to try to find it and we'd hope they'd break positive news later.In the meantime we headed back to the wetlands for another look at the waders and waterfowl. The sleepy American Wigeon was still there but no sign of the reported drake Mandadrin. Still plenty of Mediterranean Gulls loafing about but there were fewer waders than our previous visit as the tide was out so the mudflats were open for business. We did get good views of Bar tailed Godwits, feeding with a single Black Tailed Godwit though.

It was then someone came into the hide and asked if 'those' Glossy Ibis had landed here...heads shook all round no-one had seen them, then we leaned out of the window a little and looked further to the right and lo and behold there was one at the end of the unseen from where we were sat, others in the hide wouldn't have seen it either as there was a bund of grass in the way. "You mean like this one" we said. the hide's side windows were immediatly opened and there was a bit of a scrum to get the best position.

"There should be three" was heard and a few moments later the other two stalked into view. Something spooked them and they took to the air but only for a fly round the pool landing shortly after in a much better place for all to enjoy them.

After a few minutes preening they were in the air again and this time continued their journey to where-ever. The question remains, was yesterday's singleton one of these three or were these new birds. 

We moved on to the big Beacon Pond over the back where there was still no sign of the Mandarin, a 'Murder of (Carrion) Crows' kept IH amused and the three of us each managed a maximum count of 13 Little Grebes.

The birder stood next to us picked out the American Wigeon and this time it was actively feeding on submerged waterweed not snoozing as it does on th wetland pool. It moved around with a small pack of Wigeon eventually coming reasonably close on this large lake.

Best of the rest wered a couple of Gadwall, a few Grey and Ringed Plovers, several Dunlin a Cormorant and a few Mute Swans. The adjacent rough field held a family of Stonechats as we wandered back to the wetland hide. A Buzzard popped up from behind the bank to our left, the first of the trip, the gull roost held even more Mediterranean Gulls but the oft reported at mid-day Caspian Gull failed to put in an appearance for us despite extensive searching through the larger gulls. 

With it being quiet we didn't stay long but changed tthings up a bit with a drive up the road to look in the fields. Sometimes the Golden Plover flock hangs out here and at the mo there is an American Golden Plover with them, usually they are far to far out on the mudflats to stand a chance of picking it out. They weren't in the fields though, probably because the mudflats were available. There were a handful of Mallards the usual 'Serengeti's' worth of Roe Deer and two big flocks of geese, one fresh in Pink Footed Geese the other presumably resident Grey Lag Geese with a handful of Canada Geese thrown in for good measure.

Next up it was down to the seawatching hide to get out of the still strong wind. While passing the little pond in the village LCV ground the car to a halt saying theres's a Sparrowhawk in there. A few yards reverse and sure enough there was a Sparrowhawk sitting low down on a branch over the water. A good spot from the driver's seat.

The sea was quiet, as is often the case in the afternoon. However there were bits n bobs of interest. An unusually pale headed skua with hefty white wing flashes came past close in that caused a bit of exitement. IH called Arctic Skua, we though Great Skua but photos proved IH to be right. Deffo an odd looking individual and worthy of a second look and a check. Common Terns passed southwrds in dribs n drabs, while further out a few adult Gannets, mostly heading north, were good to see. A Heron flapped lazily in-off, we don't normally think of Herons as being migratory so where had this one set off from? A much more typical migrant heading towards us from well out was a single Redshank, as were three then five Teal. Another unexpected sighting was of half a dozen swimmers, all but one brave lad wet-suited up.

two or three Grey Seals were present, they can be hard to count as they move a fair way under water, was the one that was over there the same as the one that's popped its head up over here? Without a good look at their patterns it can be hard to know just how many you're seeing. Small flocks of Common Scoters moved about in the distance and a single Feral Pigeon came in-off - a genuine migrant or a lost/slow Racing Pigeon??? An Oystercatcher flew past which was bizarrely the first of the trip, normally they hit the notebook within the first hour or so of arriving.

It was now late and time for the beer n some grub.

After last night's mammal-fest on the drive back to our digs the theme continued when a Short Tailed Vole scurried across the road in the beam of our headlights. It would be safe tonight as we saw no Barn Owls again, the strong wing keeping them tucked up in their barns.

 

Where to next? Would the wind drop and the migrants arrive on our third day?

 

In the meantime let us know who's lurking furtively round ponds in your outback.