Creatures Of Habit

Both Birders and Barn Owls appear to be creatures of habit. This morning I set off early as I often do and followed my well known route across Stalmine Moss. I don’t have a driverless car yet but I think that maybe mine does this route so often that it could probably do it right now, without help from Google. Right on time and in the correct spot at the road junction was Mr Barn Owl, or maybe Mrs Barn Owl; the sexes aren’t easy to tell apart, especially in the half light of a cloudy morning. 

Barn Owl

Barn Owl

I stopped at the rainwater flood on Rawcliffe Moss where yesterday’s rain had topped up the water level a little. There didn’t appear to be much doing at first with approximately 400 Starlings splashing around the shallows and a couple of Swallows flitting over the surface. A shoot on nearby land did the trick as first 2 Buzzards and then a dark Marsh Harrier appeared over the distant trees, the harrier in particular flying quite fast and south. It’s just a mile to the River Wyre and where to follow its course would take the harrier to the coast. 

Two Black-tailed Godwits flew over heading west. Then a flock of about 60 previously unnoticed Meadow Pipits took to the air and scattered in all directions before settling down again in the grassy field. In a further field and in amongst a dozen or more Wood Pigeons were 6 Stock Dove. 

I stopped briefly at Braides Farm where an annual flood has yet to materialise despite the rain of recent weeks. All that I found here were singles of Curlew, Buzzard, Grey Heron and Little Egret. 

The hundreds of Lapwings at Conder Green are now a thing of the recent past. I counted a mere handful before seeing that a couple of thousand and maybe more had panicked into the air, a grey mass of Lapwings beyond the railway bridge and directly above the distant River Lune. Only a Peregrine could perform that trick.

Compensation for the low count of Lapwings on the pool came with a good selection of other birds; 18 Redshank, 6 Greenshank, 6 Curlew, 3 Snipe, 1 Common Sandpiper, 1 Green Sandpiper, 3 Goosander, 3 Wigeon, 18 Teal, 3 Little Egret, 1 Grey Heron, 3 Pied Wagtail and a Kingfisher. The Kingfisher was yet another fly by, and although I watched it fish from the edge of a far island, this one seems not to come near the birder’s watch point. Little Grebe numbered 17, the same count as my last visit but short of the nineteen counted two weeks ago. 

Curlew

Over towards the railway bridge I noticed a gaggle of 19 very wary Greylag Geese, not a species which is at all common at Conder Green, at least not on the ground. The geese fed on the marsh for a while and then made their way into the creek when I noticed that one wore an orange neck collar inscribed with black lettering of “SDB”. 

Greylag Geese

Later, a quick look on the Internet revealed that the goose may have been captured on the Orkney Islands, some 450 miles north of here, and where between 2008 and 2012 hundreds of Greylags were marked with either an orange neck collar with three characters or a white plastic leg ring with three black characters. 

The Orkney Ringing Group - “The number of Greylag Geese in both the summer (c10,000) and winter (c70,000) are increasing on Orkney. The national Goose Science Advisory Group (GSAG) has identified the marking of Greylag Geese a priority in Scotland. Little is known about the movements of these birds after the breeding season. No catching has been undertaken during the winter months when the summer stock is joined by up to 60,000 winter migrants from Iceland. The degree of mixing of the two stocks is not known.”

Linking to Anni's Birding Blog.

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