Jill and I went up to Capernwray today to get her Suunto dive computer fixed. Capernwray, near Lancaster, has a dive shop which is our nearest Suunto dealer. Fortunately for me its only a couple of miles from RSPB reserve "Leighton moss". As the computer would take a fews hours to fix, we had plenty time for a Bittern hunt.
Leighton moss is a large reedbed and wetland reserve in North Lancashire. Scored a marsh harrier for this years uk list before we had even arrived at the car park.
Heres the view from 1 of the 5 hides. Click pic to enlarge.
This grey heron, mallard, coot, BH gulls, mute swans, lapwings and Black tailed Godwits were all nesting nearby the first hide. Swifts, swallows and house martins were all hunting insects on the wing. But no sign of the Bittern that we saw so easily from this hide on our last visit.
Between hides, I found my first damsels and dragons for the year. Blue-tailed and large-red damselfies and 1 four-spotted chaser were seen. The only butterflies seen were small-white and green-veined whites.
At the second hide we found another mute swan nest and 4 doe red deer. A pair of Gadwall and a pair of moorhen were the only other sightings here. Sedge warbler and reed warbler were heard constantly but I'm not counting either (on my uk2007 list) until I get a good sighting in the open. I find it quite hard to separate the 2, just from song.
At the last hide we visited (the one nearest the centre) we found a BH gull colony. Very noisy and not much more to see save a GC grebe nest and a scattering of mallard. So it was a short car journey to the "Eric Morecambe" hide for us.
It was high tide when we arrived at the shore hides (cos we had stopped at the Silverdale pub for lunch). At least there were a few Avocets still active. Nice elegant bird the Avocet, you can see why the RSPB chose it as the logo. Redshank, shelduck, greylag goose, oystercatcher and lots of curlew here, but no Blackwits like the last time. Got a nice clear view of a sedge warbler (better than just counting a song for my uk2007 list) on the way back to the car. I should have stopped to digiscope it but Jill was getting bored, being a non birder.
So not a bad way to kill time while we waited for the computer to get fixed, and it was ready at 4pm too. A good day, even if I did dip on the Bittern and Bearded tits. 115 species for the year.
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