A break in the rainy weather at last, and I was ready for it! I'm on night shift this week so I could take advantage of the winter sunlight today.
Incidentally, this is my third Lancashire bird of note, described as "great". Last week was the Great northern diver at Clowbridge res and before that the Great grey shrike at Waddington fell.
Heres a map of the Leighton moss reserve
(as usual, click photos to enlarge)
Why Leighton moss? Well, I'd heard that the GWE was pretty much a resident bird now and theres also the lure of plenty wintering Bittern, bearded reedlings and water rail. Also, I had 2 big bags of used stamps for the RSPB Albatross appeal.
Dont ask me what they do with used stamps, but its definately a worthwhile appeal.
I arrived before the centre had opened (8.30am), so just headed out to the Grisedale hide for a look. A few reed bunting on the path, but no reedlings.
With the luxury of no birders yet, I had the Great white egret all to myself. Its was at some distance and against the light but I managed a dodgyscope when it caught a very large fish for breakfast. Its funny watching egrets hunting, they go from an elegant, alert bird, to a gangly Basil Fawlty type creature, dancing about with limbs everywhere. Seems to work though, as it settled down to nap after this big feed.
After dodgyscoping some of the other waterfowl from the grisedale hide,(shoveller,teal,wigeon,mallard,coot) I headed back along to the Tim Jackson hide. Just like the last time I was here, there were a few red deer visible, but this time with majestic antlers.
The only other thing of interest here was a possible water pipit. Couldnt be 100% but they have been seen at the reserve this winter.
Onwards to the public hide, passed the bearded reedling tables. I heard a rattling call from the reeds on the way down here. On listening to the rspb soundpage, I'm 90% sure that the reedlings were very nearby, but no sighting.
This cormorant and Great black-backed gull (another Lancs "great") were nice consolation for the lack of Bittern, which are most commonly seen from this hide. Too many loud, fidgetly and clumsy folks in this hide, so I bailed out towards the lower hide to look for otter, bittern and water pipit.
The lower hide is where folks have been reporting otter sightings, early in the morning. Not much chance today though, as some other birders seem to think that their picnic lunch and flask all have to be individually wrapped in poly bags. So I ousted myself again from these annoying fidgety gits and headed out to the Eric Morcambe hide on the estuary.
Aha, peace and quiet from others now! Why? Well with the recent rains, the paths to the 2 hides out here are flooded and I couldnt help but notice that I was one of the only twitchers wearing wellies today ;-)
2 pairs of merganser (female above), a little grebe, some shelduck, roosting godwits, redshank and lapwing all present out this way. However, being not to great at IDing winter plumed waders, the next pair (below) caused me some probs.
Fast moving, backlit and unable to see the legs!
But by changing my angle, I managed to get ID shots of......
.....Spotted redshank......
....and greenshank.
I havent ever seen spotted redshank in the uk, but I did see them in summer plumage in Hong Kong (at Mai Po marshes) in 2000. That day they were overshadowed by my only ever sighting of Nordmanns greenshank!
So with 53 species seen today, these two sunbathing snipe and a noisy stonechat were my last 2 birds before returning home to get ready for the nightshift.
I dont know if I'll get another post in beforehand, but I'm off to Egypt for some diving next week. I'll be taking the binoculars for a look at the birdlife as well as the fishlife underwater. Heres a link to my Scuba diving blog, if anyones interested.
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