Bamber Bridge Birder: redshank

Showing posts with label redshank. Show all posts

Spotted Sandpiper, Brockholes Nature Reserve LWT - 30th May 2011

I was walking the dogs at the local patch in the rain when the text came through that resident birder Bill Aspin had sighted a Spotted Sandpiper on No. 1 pit at Brockholes. No brainer really so a call home to make sure Reece was going to be ready and another 20 minutes walk around Stags Lodge with the boys and off we headed.

I joined Robin Shelton in the car park and we walked down to 'the family hide' on No. 1 Pit to see stunning views as it fed along the shoreline in front of the Sand Martin wall.

ABOVE SPOTTED SANDPIPER BELOW WITH REDSHANK FOR COMPARISON

ABOVE SPOTTED SANDPIPER BELOW REDSHANK

There must have been c20 birders watching this stunning North American Wader and more were arriving as we walked back to the visitors centre and as we left. It was our first visit to the centre since it had opened and what a great place to have a coffee looking over the meadow pool.

Out & About in Lancashire - 27th October 2010

To start lets put the previous posts identification to rest - they are Linnet!

Well its been a while, weekends being busy with Reeces rugby but I took the day off work and decided to visit a few places across Lancashire to see what we could find. We started up at Heysham north harbour with the hope of seeing some Twite but it took a second visit later in the day to find them. Nothing unusual found with Oystercatcher, Redshank, Curlew, Turnstone, various Gulls though we couldn't pick out the Med Gull that is hanging around up there, Pied Wagtail and Goldfinch rounded the visit off.

ABOVE BLACK HEADED GULL

ABOVE A GULL DROPPING A MUSCLE ON THE ROCKS BELOW

ABOVE 1ST WINTER HERRING GULL

ABOVE PIED WAGTAIL & BELOW ONE OF A LARGE FLOCK OF GOLDFINCH

Next stop was the Eric Morcambe and Allen hides at Leighton Moss with 100+ Redshank, 8+ Little Egret, 2 Greenshank, Goosander and Wigeon the only birds of interest.

ABOVE & BELOW LITTLE EGRET

ABOVE WIGEON BELOW REDSHANK

BELOW ROOK TAKEN BY REECE

From there we headed back to Heysham where we picked up the Twite before passing through the Trough of Bowland in hope of catching site of the Great Grey Shrike that has taken up residence just north of the Moorcroft pub at Waddington. As is usual we missed out on the Shrike but we didn't have that much time to stay to se if it would make an appearance but we did manage a flock of Brambling along with some Chaffinch and a 100+ Fieldfare on route.

ABOVE TWITE WITH A SINGLE GOLDFINCH

ABOVE BRAMBLING AND CHAFFINCH BELOW FIELDFARE

Back to Birding! - 26th September 2010

Things have been very quiet for me at least on the birding front since I got back from Tunisia. It's not that there hasn't been plenty around as a few lifers have past me by in the last few weeks but I just haven't had the time to get out. All changed on Sunday when I had a few hours free and decided to to head out to Heysham docks and call in at Conder, Pilling and Bradley Lane on the way home. I wasn't looking for anything in particular I just wanted to see what was about and hopefully get a few photos.