Just as I was packing up to head back to the office, I got a text from the boss telling me that there was a Semipalmated sandpiper at Knott End, just a few miles from where I was! I immediately headed for the esplanade where I found a group of about ten birders watching the bird on the sands with a group of Dunlin and Ringed plovers! Only my second semi-p, or perhaps it was my first! The "first" was the disputed bird at Hoylake last year. Looks like I'll be coming down on the side of Western sandpiper with that bird then!
Year 249 (Semipalmated sandpiper)
A family party of Whooper swans on a flooded field. Notice the white bills of the juveniles and the mud around the base of the bills of the adults. Unlike passerines, all wildfowl migrate in family parties, and the juveniles are taught where to go by the adults. That's why feral geese are mainly resident even when they mix with their wild counterparts on their wintering grounds such as here in Lancashire, and it's also why fit and healthy wild birds will remain in this country over the summer if one of their parents gets injured over the winter and cannot return north.
I wonder if one of the consequences of this behaviour could be that species might forget about particular wintering grounds over a period of time. Take for example the Bewick's swan. Twenty years ago there were more Bewick's at Martin Mere than Whoopers, with up to 800 regular in winter. These days it can be a struggle to get them on your year list, largely due to milder winters, which mean that the Bewick's tend to stay on the continent rather than come here. Since the swans are taught where to go by the adults, could it be that over time, even if the winters became colder again, the species might simply forget about Martin Mere and might never return in such big numbers?
More Whoopers.
Birders on the beach watching the semi-p.
Knott End
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