Caught-a-flounder with Ease

The Dee at Connah's Quay was the scene of some serious fishing this morning with the local fisherman and the resident Cormorants competing to hoover-up the flatfish. Judging by the number of bulging throats, the Cormorants were winning hands-down. Have the fishermen not seen the HSBC advert – work together guys!

Cormorants have always interested me. How it is a bird so tied to the water has feathers that are so prone to getting wet is beyond me. This in addition to its rather prehistoric appearance leads me to think it must have just given up evolving…

They are certainly an optimistic species too; some of the twenty or so birds assembled on the edge of Oakenholt Marsh were attempting to dry their wings in the middle of a deluge, although according to somebody who shall remain nameless (!) the classic wings-out pose may also facilitate digestion.

Plenty of other activity too, with thousands of waders jostling for position as the tide quickly enveloped the marsh – its predicted height of nine point two metres seemingly increased by a combination of the low pressure, high wind and swollen river.

Oystercatcher, Dunlin and Knot completed the lion’s share of the roost. The Black-tailed Godwit numbers seem to have dropped-off markedly in the last couple of weeks. From a peak of around six thousand birds in October, the vast majority of them have seemingly moved on to either other areas of the estuary or to wintering grounds further south. Sounds like a plan to me!

Connah’s Quay 18.11.09

2,500 Oystercatcher
2,000 Knot
1,200 Dunlin
1,000 Black-tailed Godwit
300 Lapwing
100 Redshank
60 Curlew
3 Greenshank
70 Cormorant
90 Great Black-backed Gull
8 Great Crested Grebe
800 Teal
1 Kingfisher

Until later.

Blakemere Moss

“Britain braces itself for bout of mild weather” was the rather oxymoronic headline when I logged on to yahoo mail this morning - I do wonder sometimes.

Despite being in the middle of one the most well trodden sections of Delamere Forest, Blakemere Moss can provide a home for some interesting birds. Its thick, ebony, acidic and peaty water is not the first choice for a lot of wildlife, but in winter particularly it may hold things of interest – last year I found a Whooper Swan, a Woodcock and two Jack Snipe and a friend recently had great views of Firecrest.

A lap around the lake takes approximately an hour and there are plenty of access points leading to the water’s edge where you can scan round and take a break from dodging the mountain bikes.

There wasn’t much on the mere today; it was a little disappointing, although there were plenty of interesting passerines in the surrounding woodland.

Highlights included a lovely flock of circa twenty Siskin, a pair of Bullfinches (that I could hear but remained well hidden), and best of all four Crossbill flying over the ‘Go Ape’ adventure section.

I must confess that I do struggle to retain many bird calls – passerines specifically – but the ‘jip-jipping’ of Crossbills seems to be one of minority that has fortunately lodged in my brain – Bullfinch too, it’s just so feeble!

Until later.

Beachcombing

What is Etemophila alpestris’ common name? Is it Shorelark, Shore Lark or even Horned Lark – somebody make a decision!

No matter, it was great to see two of them at the Point of Ayr this afternoon -accompanied too by a handful of lovely Snow Bunting. For a family of birds not exactly renowned for producing the most dazzling of species, the Shore Lark is the exception that proves the rule.

It has been a few years I believe since they last graced the Dee Estuary and being a new bird for me, I think it was well worth the wait – the colouration around the head is exquisite making for a very handsome little passerine.

Finally getting to see the birds feeding on the spit was a quite a relief as I had already spent two frustratingly wet hours trying to locate them. I had initially searched the section of beech west of the red flag towards and including Gronant and seen absolutely bugger all.

When I had practically given up the ghost, I noticed a few birders assembled on the spit just east of the car park – an area I had avoided when I arrived as birds were roosting – and headed over to explore.

Both the Snow Buntings and the Shore Larks were extremely confiding, although predictably not confiding enough for one photographer (minus binoculars) who decided to indulge in a game of ‘grandma’s footsteps’ with the birds. Fortunately they didn’t seem to mind too much and I watched them fastidiously probing around the strand line for around an hour.

The Snow Buntings probably appreciated their presence even more. Usually very much the focus of attention, I imagine they would probably be enjoying their time out of the spotlight for a change…

Until later.

P.S - I have just received an e-mail from Keith Duckers detailing a day's birding around the Wirral side of the Dee Estuary on Sunday, including the Parkgate Raptor Watch. I have added it into the comments section below - apparently there were 200 people at Parkgate in the evening! Thanks Keith.

Lavan Sands

A window of decent weather in the middle of the current monsoon season had John Boswell, 007 and I motoring down to the Llanfairfechan to try and connect with at least one of the clutch of Slavonian Grebes reported from the Lavan Sands area over the last week or so.

The omens were not good when we searched the sea from the hide at Morfa Madryn – it was a struggle to find anything at all on the water except from a sprinkling of Wigeon, Red-breasted Merganser and Great Crested Grebe. We did however turn up a light-bellied Brent Goose - perhaps on a day excursion from Anglesey!

Noticing a few dots on the drink further west along the shoreline towards Abergwyngregyn we opted to chance our arm from the hide at Morfa Aber. When we arrived the heavens opened, the light worsened and the surface of the water became distinctly choppier – hardly ideal conditions and as before we could find the odd GC Grebe and Merganser but nothing else.

The appearance of a couple of rainbows then signalled a change of fortune – of sorts – and we located a small grebe, albeit at quite a distance. Frustratingly, it seldom spent more than a couple of seconds on the surface and teasingly drifted right with tide taking it gradually further away. I was fairly confident it was a Slavonian Grebe, but with the scope on x60 there is always that element of doubt…

Another pair of teases was two small passerines feeding around a roosting female Goosander on a grassy spit to the right of the hide. Again, they flatly refused to move close enough to confirm their identities and upgrade themselves from suspected Twite to confirmed Twite – not playing ball today these birds!

With the tide now creeping out we re-located to the promenade at Llanfairfechan via a quick excursion back to Morfa Madyrn to scour the sewage work environs for Firecrest. With the gates firmly looked, some low level trespassing was the order of the day but despite finding plenty of passerines in the surrounding wood, a Goldcrest was the best we managed, plus a couple of Treecreepers.

It was more productive at Llanfairfechan, although again the birds were fairly far out. The best two birds were picked up in flight: a Great Northern Diver and a drake Eider, but the Slavonain Grebes were playing it coy again and refused to show.

Lavan Sands 14.11.09

6+ Red-throated Diver
1 Great Northern Diver
1 Slavonian Grebe (Almost Certainly)!
30+ Great Crested Grebe
1 Gannet
1 Brent Goose (hrota)
1 Eider
2 Goldeneye
1 Goosander
15+ Red-breasted Merganser
2 Greenshank
2 Turnstone
1 Guillemot
1 Goldcrest
2 Treecreeper

With a couple of hours light remaining we rounded of the day by calling in at RSPB Conwy. Very quiet really, although JB did record the reserve’s first Perambulator Pipit – for those of you unfamiliar with the call, it is exactly the same as the noise a squeaky buggy wheel makes!!

Until later.

Gold Is The New Grey

I don't know what it is about Frodsham No.6 tank, but the plovers clearly love it. There must have been over three thousand Lapwings and around fifteen hundred Golden Plover roosting on the drier sections early this morning.

Golden Plovers are one of my favourite birds; unlike many waders they refuse to turn a dour grey colour in the winter and look magnificent on a crisp, sunny morning.

They also have a lovely, distinctive call, that is best heard at sunrise on the welsh uplands in spring – should you be lucky enough to find one!

I was down here ostensibly to find the Water Pipit that had been reported a few days ago, but Frodsham Marshes is a big area and as there were no details in the logbook - I was more likely to have bumped into Lord Lucan and Osama bin Laden pitching a tent.

There seems to have been a mini-invasion of these elusive critters over the last few days, let’s hope one sets up camp locally so I get an opportunity to remember what they look like!

Plenty of other birds around, including large numbers of Linnets, Goldfinches, Pied Wagtails and about twenty drake Pochards on the flooded section of the tank.

Not much else to report except that there appears to have been a plague of fly-tipping – is this one of those pathway activities that leads to harder pastimes like cow-tipping?

Until later.

Excellent...

It was news that would have delighted all the C. Montgomery Burns’ across the United Kingdom. The government recently proposed to build ten new nuclear facilities across the country - all on or near existing sites.

As somebody who is passionate about wildlife, I must confess that I could not be happier, especially if this controversial form of energy reduces the need for not only carbon releasing oil and gas power stations, but the necessity for wind, tidal and wave power too – the so-called ‘renewables.’

These supposed ‘green’ sources of energy are anything but. Climate change is a hot topic, but unfortunately it is drowning-out other equally critical issues, particularly habitat destruction and over population.

To the general public, building a tidal barrage across the Severn estuary would appear to be an excellent clean solution to our energy needs. However, those of us who strive to take a deeper interest in such matters know the trade-off of such a project in relation to wildlife would be calamitous – our estuaries are amongst some of the most important natural habitats in Europe.

One particular government-wallah, the permanently tanned Peter Hain once defended this proposal claiming that bio-diversity would increase. He is actually correct, the number of species would increase, but any intelligent person recognises this argument is specious.

For example, this argument holds true if one critically endangered species was lost, but three others that are very common elsewhere are gained. Biodiversity has indeed increased, but the cost is to lose an extremely important species of flora or fauna.

Wind and wave power seem less inimical to the interests of wildlife, but as with tidal energy I would be quite glad to see the back of both of them. My objections to wind power are largely aesthetic; wind turbines are as ugly as sin and very cost ineffective. Additionally – as is the case with wave power – many installations are close to coastal areas, where the affects on sea-dwelling and pelagic birds have not been fully researched.

Nuclear Power is expensive and produces dangerous by products that are difficult – if not impossible – to dispose of safely. However, they are largely passive, take up little space and produce carbon-dioxide free energy. Hooray for Nuclear.

Well that what a little heavy wasn’t it. No worries, back to the birds, bad puns and light-hearted quips tomorrow - I promise!

Until later.

(Major Parus) Hilton

Great Tits - real ones at that and probably in possession of a greater vocabulary too! They were everywhere this afternoon and I wasn’t even reading Nuts magazine or scanning one of those dodgy websites I’ve heard so much about.

It all started when I bumped into a large winter flock of passerines when out walking my dog at the Gowy Meadows CWT reserve this afternoon. I decided to search through the group to see if it contained anything interesting, but I soon discovered bar the odd Blue Tit or Goldfinch it was Great Tits all the way – about fifty in total.

Quite interesting as Stephen Fry might say, but hardly earth-shattering. I continued my walk towards the river Gowy, but I had to turn back when I noticed the cows had been moved to graze the pasture I needed to cross. I decided to drive to the woodland park at Mickle Trafford instead.

When I entered the park I encountered another large winter flock in the birch and willow scrub, and after scanning this gathering I found that it too was dominated by Great Tits – probably seventy of a flock of eighty or so.

It was then that I remembered that the level in my peanut feeder had been dropping quicker than the pants of a certain vacuous hotel heiress recently – a food source favoured by Great Tits.

I wonder if there has been a large influx of Great Tits this autumn. I have had a look on the interweb and cannot find much on the irruptions of this species, just one article alluding to increased breeding success following a good crop of beech nuts.

Has anybody else noticed similar numbers of Great Tits? Drop a comment if you have.

Until later.