Eccleston Mere

Yellow-legged Gull 1 adult
Lesser black-backed Gull 30 adults
Kingfisher 1
Mute Swan 1 adult
Buzzard 1
Jackdaw 200

At last something different! A flock of Lesser black-backs with a pristine adult Yellow-legged Gull on a newly ploughed field at the side of the mere . Not my first Y-L Gull at the mere but the first for a long time.

Eccleston Mere 2013 102

Eccleston Mere

Kingfisher 3
Swallow 30
House Martin 10
Tufted Duck 4
Jackdaw 200
Mute Swan 1 adult
Buzzard 1

Plenty of activity from the Kingfishers at the moment, with the adults feeding young. The Jackdaw roost is quite impressive as well, but I'm desperate for something new to turn up, I've been watching most of these birds for two months now!

Pennington Flash

I called in at the Flash at lunch time for a second look at the Lesser Scaup, and thank goodness I did! It was much closer than on my previous visit and even better, it was awake!

I managed to fire off a few half decent photos of the bird.

 

 

With a female or young male Tufted Duck which was following it around. It did spark a debate about whether or not we had a pair of Lesser Scaup, but the female type bird has the wrong head shape, the wrong bill pattern and even has a bit of a tuft, so unfortunately it will just have to go down as Tufted duck.

I wanted to try to get a shot of the bird which was clearly identifiable as being at Pennington Flash.

 

A close look at the female type Tuftie.

 

Lesser scaup, Pennington Flash

Lesser scaup 1 male
Pochard 4
Tufted duck 50

There was a time (about 20 years ago??) when Lesser scaup was a real rarity, but these days it's more like a scare vagrant. This was a my seventh in the UK, my second this year and it wasn't even my first at Pennington Flash, having seen the last in 2003. It was a better looking bird than I was expecting. Described as a drake in eclipse, it still stood out well from the tufties with its grey, vermiculated back and pale sides. Given a half decent view it's bill is distinctly different from tuftie and it looked a slightly larger bird.

Eccleston Mere

Little Grebe 1 juv.
Tufted Duck 5
Nuthatch 1
Mute Swan 1 adult
Kingfisher 1
House Martin 20
Swallow 10

Dipper Davies strikes again

Sometimes it might seem like everywhere I go I see things, and life's just one new tick after another. Yet there is a another, unseen, darker side to birding. It began last week, Tuesday to be precise. I called in at Blithfield Reservoir in Staffordshire, on my way down to Hampshire, in the hope of seeing a couple of Ospreys that had been there for a few days. They were still there (apparently) but I couldn't see them, there was a blanket of thick fog over the entire area. I had to go back the following day.

Then on Sunday I went to the Great Orme. The Dotterel disappeared shortly before we arrived and reappeared shortly after we left, after we had spent almost five hours there. On Monday I decided to have a second, more relaxed look at the Stilt sandpiper at Neumann's Flash in Cheshire. I was there at 7:30am, just minutes after it had been flushed to Sandbach by a Sparrowhawk.

Yesterday evening I decided to call in at Pennington Flash to have a look at the Lesser Scaup that has been present for a day or two. No luck, it flew to the other end of the flash moments before I arrived and we couldn't relocate it. So I decided to go again this morning on my way into work. It's probably still there, but once again a thick blanket of fog stopped me seeing it. Aaaargh! Hopefully that's the end of it and I can return to a life of seeing everything I try for.

On the positive side, I did at least see the Ospreys the following day, I did see the Stilt sandpiper on Saturday and I have already seen Lesser scaup this year, and it's not even a Pennington flash tick for me. So who cares...............

Great Orme

We had a nice walk across the Orme today, but I was out of luck with the Dotterel that has been there for a few days. It disappeared about two hours before we got there and reappeared about one hour after we left! Oh well, can't win them all.

 

The only bird of note today was a Gannet.

 

There was a great display of gorse and bell heather on the Orme. This is looking towards Puffin Island and Anglesey.