9th March - Port Carlisle etc

Purple Rain by Prince (or whatever he calls himself nowadays) is an awesome track, but then so is Anarchy in the UK by The Sex Pistols. However, that said, the two tracks are not comparable. This is a bit like the fact that Short-billed Dowitcher and Masked Shrike are both awesome birds, but surely although both have a similar rarity value they are not comparable. My point is I think Purple Rain is a fantastic track however Anarchy in the UK is far superior. Much like the fact that I think that Short-billed Dowitcher is a superb bird to see in the UK, but I feel that Masked Shrike is a far nicer bird to see!

Well what has this got to do with my few hours birding today............er...............nowt!

Derek picked me up early afternoon and we headed towards Anthorn to see what we could see. We were hoping for some geese on Newton Marsh, but apart from a very small group of Pink-footed Geese there were none to be seen! The estuary was fairly quite also, with just a few Redshank and Oystercatchers. We continued on around towards Bowness-on-solway and had a quick look on the scrape at Campfield, besides a few wigeon there was very little to see. Next stop was Port Carlisle Harbour where we got nice views of the wintering Greenshank amongst the throng of Redshank (also a few dunlin and know mixed in). There was two female Scaup feeding close inshore along with a few Red-breasted Mergansers. Five Pintail flew in over the water and a small group of Kittiwake flew upstream on the rising tide.

Next we had a look at Easton, still no geese! A run along to Oulten produced a flock of around 1800 Pink-footed Geese, a nice end to a couple of hours birding!

So I guess what I am saying is that the Masked Shrike is definitely in the 'Sex Pistols' genre of rarities.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

A Successful Twitch to South Wales!

I hate thatched-roof cottages. This has been a pet hate of mine for years, not sure what sparked it off really. It is not just because they are so twee and chocolate boxy, it is more to do with the fact they are so pretentious! I am sure that there was a time when most houses had thatched roofs but that was before better more durable and more aesthetic materials were discovered. Nowadays people only have thatched roof houses as a status symbol, a bit like driving a mazda mx or using greenkat binoculars!
Anyway I was on the train 'n' bus on my way to Stockport where I was staying before heading onwards to a mega twitch with Tom and Dan! I got a taxi from the train station to Tom's house, as he and his partner had kindly invited me to stay before our big mega twitch the following morning.
We left at just after stupid o'clock (04:00hrs) and had to go via Lerwick to pick up Dan (er......it may have been Stoke). Once we had picked up Dan, we headed through mid-Wales to Ferryside.
We arrived just before 1000hrs, and quickly made our way to a suitable vantage point. I was amazed how many bird watchers were there. It was not long before Tom & Dan picked out our first target bird, a 2nd winter Med Gull (wow). Not long after that we saw our other two target birds, Red Kite (double wow) and Goshawk (treble wow). This had been an amazingly successful twitch!

I then got talking to some other birders present, and they were apparently looking for a Glaucoma-winged Gull, Britain's first, no less! This bird had allegedly (sorry, apparently) been seen for 20 minuted the previous day by seven well known birders that nobody knew. When we left at around 1800hrs the gull had not been seen, there was hundreds of disappointed birders! Not us, we had a thoroughly successful day having seen all the birds we had come to see. Seriously, we would not have travelled such a vast distance to see a bird that had only been seen for 30 minutes the previous day, that would have been silly..............................................................................

4th March - Snow Goose!

Well we were fueling up at the local garage ready to head down to Pilling in Lancashire to look for the intermediate morph Snow Goose that had been present the last few days. Then I got a phonecall from Craig informing us that Darren had found a white morph Snow Goose in with the Pink-footed Geese on Newton Marsh, viewable from near Anthorn. This was excellent as it would safe us a fair trip to Lancashire and it would be a county tick!

We headed off towards Anthorn and Darren phoned me whist we were en-route. Darren gave me directions to where the bird was best viewed from and within fifteen minutes or so, we were there! Darren was still watching the bird and it was not long before I could see it! As can be seen by my very crappy pics the bird was fairly distant, not allowing very good photographic opportunities! However despite the distance good scope view could be obtained and all the salient features seen !! The bird was seen in flight on several occasions, but stayed in the same general area.

There were several thousand Pink-footed Geese and huge numbers of Barnacle Geese on Newton Marsh.

Also in the area was a female scaup amongst the usual species present.

A nice surprise of a day all in all!