Monday, October 18, 2021
Yes, I’m on with the job and although it was windy this morning, the sun was out again and I was looking for blog material. And at 0745 the Barn Owl was still looking for a breakfast around the fields and fence hopping the ditches near Lane Ends. I then regretted not getting up earlier and getting new owl photos, but as the run rose a little more the bird disappeared out of sight towards the village and its daytime roost so I turned my attention to Lane Ends itself.
Blackcap and Reed Warbler sang out from the plantation with a cluster of 15+ Blackbirds young and old feeding on the tilled ground, with the now regular but flighty Jay putting in a brief appearance.
From Pilling Water I saw the distant Barn Owl again now flying over Damside and then on towards Fluke Hall Lane, but with the owl’s circuit of a couple of square miles where to park the car at 0600 for the chance of fleeting photography in the morning light remains the question. The inland stretch of Pilling Water had a circling, hovering Kestrel, 4 Swift, 15 Swallow, 6 House Martin, 1 Oystercatcher and 4 Lapwing, and on the outer, 1 Common Sandpiper, 12 Redshank and 14 Shelduck.
There are a few more finches about now that first broods have fledged with a nice little mixed flock building up on the sea wall seed heads with a count of 15 Linnet, 18 Goldfinch and 7 Greenfinch. As in recent days I found 4 Meadow Pipits and the usual number of 10/15 Skylark.
Up at Fluke Hall a pair of Oystercatcher sounded out to one well grown young, with 15 Redshank, 12 Shelduck, 18 Lapwing and another Common Sandpiper on the pool. I tracked down another pair of Redshanks with young chicks, but the adults had their young tucked away in an unapproachable spot of thick cover, warning the youngsters of me long before I got near. There’s a good reason a Redshank is known as “Sentinel of the Marsh”. The wary adults didn’t go too far away but stayed put along the fence posts or overhead from where they yelled at me, advising the chicks to stay hidden as they drew in Lapwings and Oystercatchers to scold me also.
If the rain holds off this evening there may be a spot of ringing with a fresh post tomorrow. Watch this space.