Monday, October 18, 2021
Another shower-dodging, breezy morning saw me try my luck at Conder Green where I bumped into PW on the windswept viaduct. We chatted briefly whilst both looking west at the incoming clouds and bemoaning the summer, watched the local House Martins battling over the salt marsh, then went our separate ways with better luck we hoped.
On the pool and creek I counted 1 Grey Heron, 9 Common Sandpiper, 2 Spotted Redshank, 4 Greenshank, 2 Black-tailed Godwits, 55 Redshank, 12 Oystercatcher and 5 Curlew before I headed south to more familiar territory of Pilling. If only our locally occurring Greenshanks were as accommodating as the few I saw in Egypt.
At Lane Ends the sky to the west looked dark to say the least as I set off to Pilling Water thinking the rain had moved around and north out over the bay; no such luck as I got the tail end of a heavy shower and a good soaking in exchange for 1 Reed Warbler, 40 Linnets, 1 Greenfinch, 2 Kestrel, 5 Pied Wagtail, 3 Common Sandpipers, 1 Grey Heron, 28 Curlew, 18 Redshank and 80 Lapwings.
I called it a morning, drying out at home then did a little garden ringing pm when the wind dropped and the showers died out. Goldfinches are back in numbers for the irresistible Niger feed and I also caught 3 Blackbirds – adult female and 2 juveniles, one of them in the stages of growing its blacker male tail feathers. Also 2 Wrens and a juvenile Robin – the fault bar mid-way through the tail tells a tale of changeable food availability of late.
