Fish 1 Cormorant 0 - 29th December 2009

The plan was to visit Barrow Lodge to get some more photo's of the still resident Velvet Scoter (yes the pentax was fully charged!), then head on up to Pendle Hill to see if we could find the Snow Buntings. Well the lodge was thawing so even though it was still present it was out of reach of the Pentax and its 300mm lens and the top of Pendle Hill wasn't visible so we decided not to risk what would have been our first journey up to the sumit.
So where did we go?? Having read both Jonny's and Zac's blogs I thought a trip over to Fleetwood to try and pick up on some lifers in the way of  Tundra, Taiga Bean and a White Fronted Geese but not not knowing the area and not having a grid ref there was no way of finding them, (also missed the Ring-Necked Duck at Thornton ICI we drove right past the place!!).
We parked up near the docks and had a quick look around with the usual Gulls, 200+Oystercatcher and 50+ Redshank. Next stop was Fleetwood boating lake with 3 Merganser and a single Tufted Duck the only thing of note.

ABOVE DRAKE TUFTED DUCK BELOW PINKFOOTED GEESE

Driving between Rossall and Bispam Reece spotted Pinkfooted in a field so it was about turn to check if anything else was feeding with them. All we could find were a Whooper Swan, Lapwing and 100+ Pinkfooted with more passing over head.

On to Fairhaven Lake first checking out the waders on the shore with Redshank, Curlew, 8 Snipe and 100+ Shellduck. Round the lake (and to the thread title) we looked out for the reported Shag (though it was a while ago) but all we could find were Cormorant. As we walked around the lake a Cormorant pulled a very large flat fish onto the side of the lake and attempted to consume it. A family walked up behind it, one of them taking a photo with his phone, Reece was also attempting to photograph it with the Pentax but as it works slightly different than the Lumix....................... Well having taken a photo the family continued towards the feeding Cormorant scaring it off then proceeded to throw the still live fish back into the lake. Reece wasn't to happy and Im sure the Cormorant wasn't either!

ABOVE CORMORANT (CARBO) BELOW CORMORANT (SINENSIS)

Our sightings on the lake (apart from the Cormorant) included Tufted Duck, a Female Goldeneye, Moorhen, Mallard, 3 Fieldfare, Jackdaw (not on the lake), the usual Gulls and a Little Grebe.

ABOVE ADULT AND 2ND WINTER HERRING GULL

ABOVE JACKDAW BELOW MOORHEN

The last stop was Newton Marsh and at first glance there seemed to be nothing around but with a look through the binoculars we counted 100+ Curlew and 40+ Lapwing with a Buzard and 10 Golden Plover being added once we scoped the area.