The best laid plans scuppered by the weather again

The Safari was up at Leighton Moss with CR again after a weather induced decision took us away from our prefered venture into south Cumbria where we had hoped to fettle out some scaly things. The weather forecast had other ideas though and told us to expect wintery showers thick and fast throughout the day. So change of venue it was and not to worry as Leighton Moss had a pair of Garganey recently arrived and the prospect of smaller arrivals in the form of Willow Warblers and Blackcaps to look forward to as well as the possibility of an Osprey going over and the resident Bitterns, Cetti's Warblers and Bearded Tits and maybe even a Jay (no chance!) to add to our Challenge tally.

News on the street was that the Garganey were at the Grisedale hide so that's where we set off for first. Once at the hide we learnt we'd arrived about half an hour after an Osprey had passed through...would there be another one later?????. But there was no sign of the Garganey. In fact there wasn't much sign of anything although to be fair Cetti's Warblers taunted and teased us by signing from invisible locations and Bitterns boomed similarly invisibly. The light was atrocious too, those regular showers didn't materialise and we had bright sunshine all morning making viewing  in to the light awkward and uncomfortable at times with the glare off the water. Then something unseen flushed a small group of Teal from the left which flew across in front of the hide and landed away to the right, but following them, swimming rather than flying, was the pair of Garganey. Why the shout hadn't gone up from the left hand side of the hide we don't know but they were getting to the point of no return into the bad light when we picked them up and spread the word.

They sailed passed us and settled in a really bad patch of glare, impossible to get any more pics. #128.

A quick look from Tim Jackson Hide wasn't up to much so we opted to head for the causeway and break open the butty box there passing through Lillian's Hide on the way. Again there wasn't too much to be had at Lillian's and looking anywhere right of straight out was difficult due to the glare, we tried to look through the diving duck flock to see if the female Ring Necked Duck was still present but to be honest it was hard enough to tell Pochards from Tufted Ducks the light was that bad. 

As usual while we're on safari we keep a tally of Egrets v Herons. By now Egrets had a slight upper hand by now but for a change Herons weren't going to beaten easily today although they are hard to keep a track of as they move around a bit and accidental double counting can easily come into play. With not much to aim the camera at here and Heron's being big and slow we tried a bit of BiF photography, one day we hope to get the hang of it!

A bit nearer were a few Black Headed Gulls coming and going from the nesting platforms put out for the Common Terns.

Away in the distance and sitting alone, all Billy No Mates, was our friend the Cinnamon Teal x Shoveler hybrid. We thought we'd seen him earlier at the Tim Jackson hide but that must have just been a moulty normal Shoveler showing a large white facial crescent.

Bitterns boomed and Cetti's Warblers cettied but still unseen. Distant Marsh Harriers harried the ducks in the pools at the back side of the reedbed but nothing was really close to keep us entertained to we moved on, those butties now trying to break out of the box! The walk to the Causeway Hide past the wooded area didn't provide any Siskins as it had on recent visits and nor were there any fresh-in Blackcaps or Willow Warblers. We were hoping for a butterly or some solitary bees too but despite the sunshine neither were on the wing. From the Causeway Hide we could see the water level had dropped a bit since our last visit but was still a good bit higher than normal. Small numbers of Tufted Ducks and Pochard were the main event.

Again the walk through the woods down to Lower Hide was disappointingly quiet, no longer being allowed to chuck bird seed down willy-nilly has meant you're not being accosted by Robins and Great Tits for a free hand-out but has made the bird life in the woods much harder to find. And the 'Jay field' was devoid of Jays, no change there then! 

From Lower Hide we heard yet more booming Bitterns and even more singing Cetti's Warblers, one was right outside the back of the hide but whenever it struck up and we poked our head out of the window or door it was nowhere to be seen.It comes to something when you're reduced to taking pics of immature Mute Swans sailing by, there wasn't much else to see never mind point the camera at; no amount of willing got a Bittern to come to the edge of the reedbed.

It was that bad we were reduced to aiming at a small clump of Marsh Marigolds in front of the hide.

We were about to leave when the first of the day's showers struck. We stayed put and waited for the Sand Martins to drop out of the sky - none did! The rain didn't last long and now that our butty boxes were empty we set off back towards the Garganeys. The woods were still quiet, no Willow Warblers nor Blackcaps had arrived. But just as we got back to the Causeway a Blackcap briefly sang a few notes, good to get one on the day list but no chance of a pic of it in the dense Blackthorn thicket. The Causeway hide was full to busting so we went straight through even though there were point blank Tufted Ducks in nice light right outside the window. A quick look from the screen outside the far door gave us a consolation not too distant drake Pochard.

Along the causeway a male Marsh Harrier began to come into range but veered away rather than posing for pics, we did get our first (and only as it happens) Water Rail of day, sqealing from the reeds to our left. A brief stop at the feeders had a camera-shy pair of Bullfinches and a brief view of a Treecreeper but not much else. Continuing directly to the Grisedale Hide we passed a singing Chiffchaff along the path just past the visitor centre.

On reaching the Grisedale Hide the light wwas better than earlier, or at least not so much in your face, hard right was harsh light. But there was a bit more activity. A couple of Marsh Harriers cruised around

Grey Lag Geese noisily came and went

And in theafternoon sunshine the Teal looked particularly splendid.

The males are easy to appreciate with their colourful heads with the gold pencil lines and their filigree vermiculated flanks but the females are also striking in a more subtle way with spots and speckles in a multitude of hues of brown and cream.

The Osprey nesting tower has once again been taken over by one of the resident pairs of Great Black Backed Gulls - woe betide any Osprey that tries to displace them! It might be wise for the reserve to cover the the platform until the Ospreys start to arrive in numbers but even then there's no guarantee the gulls wouldn't get there first. Both, however, are Amber Listed in the UK although the Great Black backed Gull population is about 15,000 pairs compared to only 250 pairs of Ospreys, the latter are rapidly increasing while the gulls are just about stable with maybe a slight increase in recent years.

Meanwhile a female Marsh Harrier refused to do the decent thing and come close.

We always like to get a pic or two of the Gadwall but today although there were several about they weren't for showing particularly well. Still it's always good to admire their vermiculations

A splendiferous drake Teal came by and had a little preen and wash n brush up

Before hauling out in a patch of reeds and settling settling down for a nap

Grey Lag Geese continued to go back and forth while the crowd in the hide waited for the garganeys to reappear - word was they were far to the right in a little bay behind a small bush but also in very glary light so spotting them was really tricky.

Eventually, we think by fluke, we spotted the Garganey coming out from behind the tree and managed to get most folks on to them although views weren't that great. After a few minutes they did the decent thing and started swimming across the pool in our direction giving most people much better views though often obscured in the cut reeds.

They swam a little firther our way but stopped short of passing in front of the hide where they would have been in much much better light.

The pair began to pick flies that must have been hatching both off the water's surface and the vegetation.

Great to see them, somehow we didn't come across them at all last year.

We left them to the rest of the crowd, without about an hour of our time there remaining we thought we'd have a look at the saltmarsh pools. We successfully traversed the very pot-holed track without losing an exhaust pipe or wheel for a shuffy. At the Allen Pool there wasn't a lot to shuffy at but we did pick out a gorgeous adult Mediterranean Gull from the throng of Black Headed Gulls. If our soundtrack at the Moss was the booming of the Bitterns here it was the cacophony of the Black Headed Gulls, there'll be no break in their noise for the next three months - a constant 24/7 barrage of strident sound. The Med Gull was very rude and went and sat on the furthest island from us so no way we could get a pic and it must have snuck off while our attention was focused on whatever else was on the pool cos when a family of young birders came into the hide we couldn't re-find it for them.

From the hide we could see many more birds over the embankment and better viewed from the Eric Morecambe Hide so off we went. There we found lots of Redshank, including this one having a good old bathe.

One swimming

And several mooching around looking for a bite to eat

Birders with scopes found a Peregrine sat on a fence post miles away and we found a couple of Goosanders tucked under the bank of the furthest pool but it was the  that were the main reason for us to brave the track from hell. There were plenty about but none particularly close and they were scattered all across the marsh in small groups. These were about the nearest

And were joined by a couple of others from further away across the pool.

There were some on the nearest vegetated island that appeared to be feeding, on what exactly???

A large flcok of Black Tailed Godwits in the middle of the pool was disturbed by something unseen, or they had just managed to frighten themselves, but once in the air it broke up into smaller groups ansd a couple of them landed quite close. Great to see them attaining their brick red summer plumage.

We were told of a Green Winged Teal that had been seen earlier but hadn't been seen since a passing Marsh Harrier had spooked everything. We failed to find it, there's more than plenty of places it could have been hiding. There'd been a second Mediterranean Gull earlier too but we still couldn't find the one we'd originally seen from the Allen Hide.

Then all to soon it was time to brave the Bank Holiday traffic and head back to Base Camp. We needn't have worried the traffic going our way wasn't too bad but we certainly wouldn't have fancied being stuck in the miles of dead slow tail back heading up to the Lake District or Scotland.

Back at Base Camp we've been keeping an eye on the local birds, here's one half of one of the two local pairs of Dunnocks that came for easy pickings while we had taken a break from topping up the feeders and left them stood on the potting bench/moth trap table at the bottom of the garden.

We've got about three dozen House Sparrows eating us out of house n home. They must have been enjoying having a dust bath as the ground has been absolutely saturated for months - breaking news...it didn't last long, yet more persistant heavy rain has saturated the ground again.

Then our phone pinged a WhattsApp message about three Red Kites heading south a few miles away...with the wind direction they could well come our way so we went and stood in the garden waiting for the rooftop Herring Gulls to go ballistic and let us know they were on their way. In the meantime we took some gull shots to get the camera settings right and practice panning and focussing n stuff and fluked this Lesser Black Backed Gull going over the garden. They're outnumbered hundreds to one by the Herring Gulls here still.

Almost two hours we waited, camera poised for an instant strike but to no avail; the Red Kites didn't materialise.

We'll leave you with last week's pic of the Sandwich Tern we told you we wouldn't post cos it was so dire...you can judge for yourselves.

 

Where to next? Hopefully the weather will improve and we'll get out on safari and find something that isn't birds for a change.

In the meantime let us know what the soundtrack of your outback is.

Southwards for a change

The Safari picked up CR and headed south across the river to meet IH at our boyhood birding haunts.on arrival we immediately saw why IH had told us not to look for the previously regular(ish) Little Owl, its favourite tumbledown house had been demolished prior to redevelopment. It was a bright, crisp winter's day and on Lunt Meadows itself the first pool was totally frozen over and also totally lacking in life. Needless to say we didn't stay more than a couple of minutes before heading round the rest of the reserve in a clockwise direction. A birder we met at the gate told us he'd seen both a Hen Harrier and a Marsh Harrier earlier in the morning so to keep our eyes peeled. While waiting for us to arrive IH had already seen a Buzzard too, we can remember when Buzzards were almost unheard of in these parts and should one turn up it would have been top of the local gamehkeepers' hit lists. Thankfully things have changed for the better; for Buzzards at least, not so much the Hen Harriers which still suffer horrendous illegal persecution.

The first field held its usual large gaggle of feral Grey Lag and Canada Geese. There were probably more of the latter than we saw in Canada last year, although to be fair we didn't see that many. Beyond the geese the edge of the frozen pool saw a few Lapwings and Coots roosting up conserving energy in the cold conditions. A Reed Bunting flew over and a  Blackbird skulked about the boundary hedge but much more bizarre was the Ring Necked Parakeet that flew over us. We had no idea they were anywhere near hereand as non-native species go we'd much sooner have the Little Owl than these pesky parrots.

We anbled slowly on towards the next pool where a small group of birders were stood, hopefully with the 'main event' in view. The main event being an American Green Winged Teal which has been on site for at least as long as its moulted into its plumage with the vertical white shoulder stripe enough to separate it from the hundreds of our own green winged Teals. Fortunately the birders already had a scope set up on it although it wasn't showing particularly well. Can you see it?

We had the brainwave of noticing there was a bit of a gap between the Wigeon that were obsuring it and the Teal to the right so moved down the track ten yards or so to see if that made a better  viewing angle, it did, quite a bit better. The cold breeze was making us shake around rather a lot when taking pics but here there was a stout fence post without vegetation around it to lean on.

Other ducks on the pool included Mallards, some Shelducks, a few Shoveler and a handful of Gadwall with a few Coots and a couple of Moorhens thrown in for good measure. A Redshank flew in calling, possibly hoping for some soft ground to probe for worms in but it would be out of luck the ground along the track was rock hard beneath our boots. Wandering on we wondered where all the Cetti's Warblers were, usually they are the noisiest bird on the site but today there were silent. At the next pool there was some open water but most of the ducks were hauled out on the ice asleep.

Scans of the horizon, much more distant from here as the viewing point is elevated a few feet above the track, gave us no sign of any raptors even tyhough the sun was now beginning to get some warmth to it and the morning chill was going out of the air. We moved swiftly on heading to the river. The hedge beside the path was lively with small birds, indeed it was easily the liviest part of the reserve. There were Chaffinches, Greenfinches, Robins, a Wren, Reed Buntings a female of which stayed still long enough for us to point the lens at.

And right at the end of the hedge two Dunnocks sat up in the top of a Hawthorn bush, not often you see two of these skulky little devils sat out in an exposed position at the same time!

The river gave us paddling Mallards and some Lapwings in the fields beyond. Two distant Buzzards were found and a distant Heron along with a flock of small birds, Linnets or Skylarks or something else??? They were a very  long way off. We kept an eye on the reedbeds stretching below us on our side of the river just in case a Bittern should pop up - no such luck! It's amazing to think that this area is only a mile or so from our boyhood home ands we used to traipse the fields of spuds, carrots and cabbages that used to be here on our bike with a pair of almost un-see-through bins seeing nothing but Lapwings, Skylarks, Grey Partridges and occassionally in winter a skein of Pink Footed Geese - how times have changed...Bitterns a mile from our front door - who'd have believed it. The Grey Partridges are still here but sadly not much more numerous than the Bitterns now and we didn't see any today.

Having completed the circuit of the reserve it was getting near butty time and IH suggested quick nip to the coast rather than eat our scran at the car with little or nothing to look at. But rather than going to hall Road coastguards he suggested driving up to Hightown to start the coastal walk from the north end - good plan! It must be 50 years since we last crossed the railway into Hightown village and we'd never have found the parking spot access to the dunes without following IH. There we grabbed our butties and headed out to the river mouth passing through a little fence IH told us he'd helped build as a coastal volunteer about 40 years ago...all creditr to him, it still looks pretty sturdy!

A short walk brought us to the river mouth where we sat on the frozen dunes and admired the view out across the wider Mersey bay over a mirror calm sea while tucking into all manner of pies and sandwiches. Over on the sandbanks there was a huge number of waders roosting up over the high tide, Knot, Dunlin, Oystercatchers, Curlews, Redshanks and a couple of Little Egrets, a throng of Great Black Backed Gulls lined the far bank of the Alt and further out a line of Cormorants stood on the outer edge of the sanbank. More of their number roosted on the channel marker nearby while below them a large number of  Shelducks pottered about in the shallows and river channel. Scanning further out we couldn't find any Harbour Porpoises even though conditions were perfect for spotting any that might have been there.

Butties mucnhed we set off southwards along the shore line, the low afternoon sun made looking that way uncomfortable at times but at least it was warm now and we soon felt overdressed in our full winter togs.

The ebbing tide was revealing fresh mud and soon more flocks of Knot along wit ha large flock of Black Tailed Godwits flew in to take advantage of the freshly uncovered feeding areas. Walking south towards Crosby and past the WW2 bomb rubble on the beach we hoped to find some more waders although the tide seemed to be taking a long time to drop and leave a particularly favoured spot uncovered, one we've been watching since the early 70s. It's quite weird thinking back and realising there was a lot less time between the end of WW2 with that rubble being dumped there and us starting birding the area than there is between those early birding adventures and now. How time flies.

We did come across a couple of Turnstones feeding quite high up the beach.

And then saw a Grey Plover fly in showing its black axcillaries very nicely as it fluttered to a halt on the rocks (=bricks etc) on the water's edge. Trouble is we had to cautiosly get a dozen or more yards past it to look back on it with the sun behind us. Luckily our snaeking around skills didn't let us down and it stayed put allowing a few snaps.

The area has always been good for Stonechats and today was no exception. Not sure how many we saw today as they can be quite mobile but we'd hazard a guess at at aleast half a dozen. They seem to be particularly good at two things today - keeping just out of range and/or staying on the wrong side of the light. Eventually we caught up with a trio that nearly behaved for us. We only managed a pic of a young one, the snazzy male leaving his perch on a tangle of heavy duty wire a millisecond before we pressed the shutter button.

By now it was time to head back to the car before it got too dark for pics. It was a bit of hasty retreat but there wasn't too much to see along the way. We took a shorter,easier walking route back which passed by the Natterjack Toad breeding ponds - no chance of these warm weather creatures being out today, their ponds were frozen solid...a spring evening visit is on the cards to here these 'Lancashire Nightingales' singing. The low sun illuminated the seed heads of the Reeds beautifully though.

The shortly before reaching IH's ancient fence we spied a flash of white moving in a Sea Buckthorn thicket, a couple of Fieldfares were using their wings to balance their eway through the prickly mass to get to the choicest berries. A Blackbird was in there too and managed to flush on of the Fieldfares low and to the back tof the bush. Fortunately the other one stayed on the front of the bush but unfortunately in the heavily shaded part rather than the brightly lit patch a yard to the left - how annoying!

A few minutes later we were back at the cars saying farewell until next time to IH and heading back to Base Camp after a lovely day out on safari in our old haunts.

 

Where to next? Could be anywhere.

 

In the meantime let us know who's eating berries in the dark in your outback - and don't say Waxwings - - sore point!