Lots of birds in the garden today. Seems like most have now fledged a second clutch. More young robins, dunnocks, great tits and long tailed tits.
Jill put out some peanuts for the doves today and everyone seemed to take advantage of the feast.































....including the wee woodmouse thats lived there for quite a while. He came out to grab a peanut every-so-often and stash them somewhere for later.































I took treakle a walk down to the railway this morning. The spotted flycatchers are back down there. They hadnt arrived back from migration the last time I visited that area. Thats a new tick for 2007. I didnt see the local little owl but there was a mobbing party going on. 2 jays, 6 mistle thrushes, a GS woodpecker and some nuthatches were all mobbing something but I couldnt see what. Probably a sparrowhawk or tawny owl, they dont usually see little owls or kestrels as a threat.

Stop press
Osprey overhead 13.40. Flying SW directly towards dean clough reservoir. Mobbed by curlews and crows.
A very unusual garden and patch tick!

Cannock chase
Jill and I have just returned from Cannock chase in Staffordshire. We camped for 3 nights and went to see the Jools Holland concert in the forest on Sunday. The weather was abysmal but there was plenty time for reading, BBQing and wildlife watching. Heres a photo of our humble camping set-up.
















Target birds for this area were tree pipit, yellowhammer and nightjar. I managed to add the tree pipit to this years list but dipped on the others.

Walking the forest paths in the evening, looking for nightjars, I saw several tree pipits singing on their display flights. I heard a tawny owl calling in the campsite at night and a cuckoo joined the dawn chorus at 5 am.
GS woodpeckers, nuthatches, tree-creepers, coal tits and chaffinch were the most numerous birds around the campsite.
I found this linnet posing for me at close range....















....more of my favourite moth - "the cinnabar"
















...this pair of speckled wood butterflies
















...and a large skipper butterfly with its "X-wing" set-up.
















Hastily packing up our tent in the pouring rain on Sunday, I found a large violet ground beetle under my groundsheet. Looks like we had a few lodgers during our stay. I like his purple sheen.

Jay attacked by magpie

I was rudely awoken today (at 6am) by a thud on the window followed by an awful row, involving what I knew to be the magpies cackling.















When I opened the window to see what was going on. A magpie promptly let go of this jays tail, and flew off. I dont know if the maggy chased the jay into the window or if it just attacked the jay whilst it was stunned. The local carrion crow had a go at the jay while he/she recovered but also flew off when it saw me. The jay looked a little more alert after 15 mins and flew off with dishevelled feathers and a bruised ego.















I found one of its beautiful plumes on the driveway.
















The male sparrowhawk also flew over this a.m. mobbed by swallows.

Jills dad hired another dumper 2 days ago to finish his new shed, so as not to disturb the pied wagtail family. It appears the young have now left the nest (in the workings of the vehicle) and are now keeping both parent busy with feeding duties.

Marshside RSPB

Looks like evening is a good time to visit Marshside. The hides were closed, thus less people disturbing the birds and the main road wasnt too busy either. Also the setting sun made good light for digiscoping...


look at this little baby....blue legs and a slightly upturned beak...very cute but what is it????

click pics to enlarge






















Ah yes! an Avocet

































All the birds were closer to the hide area than my last visit and most had young too, but not this Lapwing.
















I set up my scope to try and get a close-up of this swallow that had nested in the hides eaves...















...then this common whitethroat stopped for a song in the same line-of-fire. My digiscoping technique is usually to slow for warblers. I got good views of a Linnet flock, but they were too flitty to get a photo.














There were a pair of ruddy ducks with their shiny blue bills.....













...and a pair of nesting shelducks within range too.















We tried nearby Downholland moss for Barn owl this evening but nothing except a couple of Red legged partridge , at long range, feeding with the stock doves.

Freckleton - Lancashire coastal walk

Planned on a double today. Plan A - My UK2007 list is looking a bit sparse, basically because I've not been ticking some of the really "easy" seabirds. I could score another 10+, if I got to the seaside for gannet, razorbill, terns, skuas, divers etc etc.

So....I'd read on the Fylde birdclub website (west Lancashire) that Starr gate in Blackpool is a good spot for seawatching. B*ll*cks! Nothing. Nada...well a couple of LBB and BH Gulls but nowt else.

Plan B was "the Naze", the Ribble estuary area and Newton marsh. Part of the Lancashire coastal walk, I've highlighted our walk in red.


Click pic to enlarge
















The glossy ibis is a rare uk tick that has stuck around since 2006, but did it appear for me today at Newton Marsh? Nope. A nice area (the red circle) for birding tho' and managed shots of this House martin collecting mud and this Blackwit.
































The walk also yeilded 2 lesser whitethroat, an incredibly secretive bird with a loud diagnosing song. The song did draw my attention at first, amongst blackcaps and common whitethroats, but I eventually got quite good views of this neat, compact little warbler.

Heres the RSPB page with the audio file of its song.

Also saw a couple of Brown hare whilst scanning the opposite fields and a large flock of Blackwits, shelduck and oystercatcher at the estuary proper.

The Lancashire coastal walk was badly maintained and made more difficult by land-owners moving the path around their property. It was barely accessible in some parts and quite badly littered. I wont be returning to the walk , but I will visit the flood pool for the Glossy ibis again.

Brockholes quarry

The weather is still miserable here, just look at this poor goldfinch sitting out the rain, in the garden.
We were down Preston way delivering today, so we stopped at Brockholes quarry for a look, and miraculously, the weather cleared for a while.














Nothing new bird-wise. Whitethroats, reed bunting, sedge warbler and all the usual waterfowl. I'm sure there was a reed warbler singing too but I've still not had a good view of one this year.
I found this cinnabar moth, too be expected really as the caterpillars eat ragwort and there was loads of ragwort amongst all the wildflowers today.
















Also a few skipper butterflies around. I'm not too good at separating these species, but I think these are small skippers















...and another new moth for me, a "shaded broad-bar". Maybe I should become a lepidopterist rather than an ornithologist.














Amongst the fantastac array of wildflowers today was this "spotted orchid".

Sparrowhawk kill!
Jill shouted up to me in the attic "...are you filming the nasty bird on the lawn?"
Nasty bird? nope.
Action stations, grab nearest camera, run to window, start filming. Got it!

A male sparrowhawk had killed one of the collared doves next to the bird bath. I had recently cleaned and filled the bird bath and the collared doves love to use it. So, I guess it was my fault that it made an easy target for the hawk. A male sparrowhawk is considerably smaller than a female and thus it hadnt managed to kill the dove outright on impact. Not enough power.

Here are some stills for now until I upload the video to "youtube".

As usual click to enlarge, the first 2 are video grabs and the second 2 are from the camera.
































































Here's the video
Sorry bout the shakiness, there was no time for a tripod. The resolution aint the BBCs High Def, but then, they havent got a turnaround like mine - camera to internet in minutes.
If you have sound, the soundtrack is a soothing guitar piece by "Jose Gonzalez" for all those feeling sad for the dove.




The video is quite harrowing for the more emotional bird-lover, as it takes about 7 mins for the dove to stop struggling as it is plucked alive.
This is pure nature and I dont like to think of this as cruel or nasty. This is how it must be and it is a priviledge to witness nature like this.

Bad choice of home for wagtails
Well at least the garden got a good watering with the storm last night, after a week of sun. The tawny owls looked a bit forlorn today when I visited them. 4 or 5 "painted ladies" in the garden this week and a few "speckled woods" in the back field.
































I found a "dark arches" moth as I was gardening today (while the soil is damp) and managed to get another 3 of this years moths IDed here-

Birdforum moth ID thread















This evening, I found out that a pair of Pied Wagtails have nested inside the dumper truck out back.















The parents are feeding young but I hope they vacate the nest before Jills dad needs to use the dumper again (probably next week). I managed to maneuver my small video camera with night vision into the workings of the machinery to view the nest, but I still dont know how many young there are.

Found this "Speckled wood" today, my first this year......














and this "small copper" 2 days ago, another years first.

On this evenings garden safari, the owls caught me out, by moving roost slightly. I only managed this one shot before they moved back to their usual tree. The young crows have left their nest nearby and had probably been disturbing the owls.















The 3 moths below are "riband wave", "silver ground carpet" and my first "silver y" of the year. Some silver y's are annual migrants from the continent!














































Around the front pond there are some common blue and blue-tailed damselflies...
















....and I noticed that not all the pink flowers are red campion, this wildflower is called "herb robert".
















I managed to watch 2 blackcaps singing from the same bush. One was male, but the other I couldnt see very well. Don't know if it was a rival male or if females also sing.
Also, 2 swallows are still being quite undecisive as to where to build their nest under the eaves.