Thursday’s Birding

More birding this morning as I headed over the moss road into a glorious sunrise, one eye on the lookout for early morning owls. It’s best to keep the other eye fixed on the single track road where the unwary might find their car sliding off the road into a field 15ft below should a tractor appear from nowhere. I wouldn’t see a Barn Owl until I arrived at Conder Green. After a good number of sightings throughout the early part of the year our local Barn Owls are now harder to find. 

The Moss

First I pulled into a farm gate at Crimbles to count the flock of feeding Curlews. On Tuesday I estimated more than 450 in the field. This morning, and after the torrential downpours, thunder and lightning of Wednesday, the Curlews numbered more like 700. The rain had freshened up the grass, puddled tractor tracks and no doubt brought more worms to the surface for the Curlews to take their fill. 

At Conder Green a Barn Owl hunted all over the marsh, ducking and diving into the long grass, stopping just occasionally to take a breather on a fence post. The owl had such a circuit that it disappeared from view for minutes at a time but then to reappear at times from an unexpected quarter. Unfortunately the bird didn’t come very close, hence the “rangefinder” shots. When a Barn Owl appeared from over the far side of the canal and flew around the margins of the pool I wondered if there might be two in action, but probably not. 

Barn Owl

Barn Owl

Barn Owl

 Barn Owl

“Greens” appeared again with the single Greenshank and Green Sandpiper while both Redshank and Lapwing numbers are lower than of late with about 40 of each. Just 5 Common Sandpiper today, the peak of their autumn return already passed. 

Greenshank

 

The young Avocet now ventures away from the adults by exploring the further edges of the pool but looks to be a week or more from first flight. The usual wildfowl still present by way of 4 Tufted Duck, 2 Wigeon and 1 Goosander with the addition today of 4 Canada Goose. Also on the pool – 3 Little Egret and 1 Grey Heron. 

A piece of excellent news is that I counted 5 active House Martin nests at Café de Lune and it is obvious that the martins prefer this building to others very close by. There’s no doubt that birds in general know exactly what they require in any given situation and that second best will rarely do. 

There are mobs of noisy Starlings about now, the flocks comprised of mostly juvenile birds like the one below. Juveniles of the year soon moult many of their brown feathers and start to take on the spotted appearance of an adult like the one standing along a wooden gate.  

Starling

At Glasson I found 2 young Moorhen with no sign of an adult nearby. A Common Tern fished the water of yacht basin at Glasson with 60+ Swallows feeding over the still water and 2 Pied Wagtail feeding exploring the towpath and the moored boats. There are lots of young wagtails around at the moment and they outnumber adults by seven or eight to one. 

At Bank End, Cockerham I found 20+ Pied Wagtails, a Wheatear, 2 Stock Dove and 50+ Sand Martins. We have not been able to catch and ring any the Sand Martins this year as their nest holes are far too high up the quarry face. 

Moorhen

 

Pied Wagtail

A trip around Jeremy Lane and Moss Lane found more gangs of Starlings as well as family parties of Whitethroat, Sedge Warbler and Reed Bunting. It was time to head home, job done until next time on .

Linking today to Anni's Birding , Eileen's Blog and to Run A Round Ranch.