The Safari joined PT to lead the North Blackpool Pond Trail's Bird Bingo family event last Saturday morning. The birds were on fine form, showing well, it's just a shame the families didn't make such a good showing too. Maybe people are doing other stuff on Saturday mornings and Sunday might be a better day for more people to be able to come along.
The birding is quite easy at Kincraig Lake as the birds are more than willing to come close and grab a beakful of whatever is on offer so you can get some nice portrait shots of old favourites like this male Mute Swan.
Note its iris, it seems to be deformed and not circular like its other one, an old injury perhaps or was it born like that?
There are three Herons' nests on the wooded island this year but now the spring buds are unfurling they are quite difficult to see unless you can watch the birds flying in to them.
Birds came and went and we saw Woodpigeons display flighting, Collared Doves passing by, Feral Pigeons doing circuits and a lone Stock Dove heading north - never really imagined seeing one of those at this sight, weird or what, it certainly wasn't on the Bird Bingo tick-off sheets!
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| Woodpigeon |
And landed on the edge of the viewing area just behind the fence almost right beneath the Woodpigeon.
It was quite wary and flew round several times looking for the best feeding opportunities around the lake which has no muddy margins, eventually after waiting most of the morning it came reasonably close.
Where there's water and bread there's inevitably Coots, this one had a nest under construction close by but wasn't going to pass up a free lunch
A young father and his very young son had tipped out what looked like some porridge oats, neither the Coot nor the Moorhen could pick up the small pieces left after the Mallards had had their fill of the choices and largest flakes in the conventional downward pecking manner we're used to seeing birds do but resorted to this unusual sideways forceps pincer peck to glean the pickings from the hard concrete.
Ever cautious at any hint of danger or anything untoward even if totally not dangerous the Moorhen would scurry to the water's edge where it waited a while before taking the plunge if necessary, which it rarely was.
From the scrub we heard Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff and Blackcaps and watched House Sparrows collecting feathers for their nest in the houses across the road.
Wandering around the lakeside path we came across our first Speckled Wood butterfly of the year and then spotted this collection of still sleepy Garden Snails.
Back at the viewing area chat had got round to news of a strange video of a deer sleeping on a dumped sofa - how comfy but how odd. Well knock us down wiff a feaver not twenty yards further on was a dumped sofa but this one had a one eyed cat sleeping on it. You couldn't rite it - well errr - we just did!
Good to see someone has provided a ramp so it doesn't have to leap so high to get on the arm rest - fly tipping at its most considerate?
Further on out of the woods and back in the sunshine a big queen Red Tailed Bumble Bee was giving the pathside Dandelions a good going over.
Dandelions get such bad press so much so that they are the 'weed of choice' for the garden herbicide advertisers and yet they do so much good for the early pollinators enabling them to build up their populations - we should be celebrating them rather than demonising and obliterating them. Us humans really can't stand anything that thrives amongst us we didn't put there can we. Just think of all those expansive and expensive swathes of yellow Daffodils along the roadsides, we could have Dandelions, Lesser Celandine, Cowslips and Primroses for free - but no we'd probably mow and spray them off as soon as they appeared in the name of 'tidiness' - what a ridiculous species we are.
Rounding the corner our group stopped to let this female Blackbird finish her ablutions.
Back at the viewing area the Common Sandpiper was still flying round and eventually settled on the remains of an old Willow bush. Not where you'd expect to see one but apparently they have been know to sing from the branches of riverside trees on their territories up on the hillside streams and smaller rivers.
A morning's birding in the sun wouldn't be complete without a raptor or two and we had three...a big female Sparrowhawk soared overhead before disappearing only to be found by the local Magpies in the wooded area when we walked through that way. A Buzzard gave a good display of 'skydancing' as it mooched sort or northeast wards and then this came over. At first when we first picked it up coming towards us being mobbed by a throng of gulls we hoped it might be an early Honey Buzzard, but the jizz wasn't right, then as it drew nearer it looked Osprey-ish for a moment but then was obviously far too long tailed. We tried to get some pics but it was quite high and the camera refused to pick it up against the sky until it was annoyingly well past us. we only got this one poor usable shot and now we're pretty sure it's a immature male Marsh Harrier - answers on the usual post card please.
Yesterday we had a mooch round Marton Mere with CR calling in at the Woodland Gardens first to see if we could find the male Pied Flycatcher LR had told us he'd found there a couple of hours earlier. Needless to say it had moved on and with not a lot else on show in there we did too.
Our mission was to get some pics of the summer warblers for our challenge but they weren't playing ball, singing yes but showing no. Grasshoppper Warbler, Whitethroat and Sedge Warbler all noisy but invisible. The first bird to hit the SD card was a Linnet swaying away in the cold brisk wind on a thin stem poking out above the Bramble thicket.
At the Bird Club hide interest was provided by the first family of Coots we've come across this spring. Our first Swift (155) of the year dropped in with a few Swallows too.
The embankment was cold in the wind and again the Reed, Sedge and Cetti's Warblers were all keeping out of sight, fortunately a Reed Bunting bucked the trend and sang from an exposed perch.
The scrub taunted us with mostly invisible Blackcaps and Whitethroats. C managed a couple of snaps of a Blackcap and a Sedge Warbler deep in cover but try as we might we couldn't get the camera on to anything at all.
That said when all seems lost nature pulls a blinder for you. After seeing not a lot from the viewing platform we turned to leave and C spotted some bee activity around a patch of Nettles catching the sun. Patient watching revealed them as a species of Nomad Bee, we don't think we've ever seen any species of these here before. wit hour birding 600mm lenses getting pics was tricky to say the least. But we both were able to get a few and they look like Nomada flava (based on this one being a male [pale yellow eyes] having all dark antennae) but we could be wrong, they're not an easy group to ID
That said when all seems lost nature pulls a blinder for you. After seeing not a lot from the viewing platform we turned to leave and C spotted some bee activity around a patch of Nettles catching the sun. Patient watching revealed them as a species of Nomad Bee, we don't think we've ever seen any species of these here before. wit hour birding 600mm lenses getting pics was tricky to say the least. But we both were able to get a few and they look like Nomada flava (based on this one being a male [pale yellow eyes] having all dark antennae) but we could be wrong, they're not an easy group to ID
If the are N. flava they've not been recorded locally before according to the NBN map, Preston 15 miles away being the closest dot. Happy days!
Where to next? Family day on the Southside tomorrow but we might see something if we get a chance
In the meantime let us know who's buzzing around for the first time in your outback
