Speckles In The Sky...

Yesterday morning at Marshside, looking out towards Marton Mere (not to be confused with Martin Mere) and Blackpool, I was treated to a preview of an amazing spectacle which would occur later in the day at dusk...

A flock of around 30,000 to 40,000 Starlings were darkening which was already at that time in the morning a very dull sky.
Reports from Marton Mere suggest more than twice this number of birds performed their amazing display at dusk and I'm kicking myself that I didn't hang around to witness it!
I'm not too downbeat though because over the next couple of months, these displays are fairly commonplace at this location.

I felt quite privileged to be present at this smaller daytime display and even more so when several thousand Starlings landed about 100 yards from where I was watching...

 I was treated to a close and very noisey flypass...

Why Starlings perform theses incredible mesmerizing feats has always been somewhat of a mystery and has baffled scientists and ornithologists for years.
It really is one of the true wonders of nature...

How do you like your eggs?

After Sunday's trip to the north east coast of England, Tuesday saw me visiting the north west coast and a lot closer to home with trips to my old favourites Marshside and Martin Mere...

The trouble with Marshside is that you really do have to be lucky with the light on the main spit when visiting in the morning, because otherwise you always find yourself shooting into the sun and unfortunately that was the case on this occasion!

Luckily I still managed to get a few decent shots of my target species and a very welcome annual spring visitor the Avocet.

One of the great things about watching wildlife is you quite often see some wonderful and very funny sights!

Tuesday's entertainment was provided by a distant Black-Backed Gull who decided he'd quite fancied the egg of a Canada Goose!

We watched in amazement as the Gull raided a nest site and somehow managed to stuff the large egg in his beak, before calmly swimming across to a nearby island, head held high and egg staying dry.

His dastardly caper soon came to end when his attempts to crack the egg failed and he captured the attention of a very angry Goose that proceeded to chase him all over the spit.

To make matters worse for the hapless Gull and indeed the Goose...While all the chasing around was going on, a opportunist Coot had quietly slipped onto the island and made short work of both cracking and devouring the contents of the egg!

The short drive to Martin Mere was next and the plan was to photograph Shelduck in flight.

Sunday's trip to Bempton Cliffs had been a very successful visit image wise and I had high hopes of carrying on from where I had left off...I should of known better!

Wildlife photography is without doubt the most frustrating genre of photography, as well as the greatest form when things go right.

Sunday had been one of the truly great days...The sort of day that happens very rarely, when everything seems to go right and the birds are just where you want them to be and doing what you want them to do!

In other words a very lucky day!

Need I tell you that the Shelduck in flight plan didn't quite go so well?

There were a number of factors to this...

One being the birds always seemed to be flying into the sun...Who am I trying to kid?

The truth is I just wasn't on my game.

Being on ones game is so important when it comes to the difficult art of trying to photograph birds in flight and if you're not quite 'on it' then your success rate is likely to be low or even zero like mine on this occasion!

All wasn't lost though and there were plenty of Shelduck around basking in the sun that were more than happy to pose for a portrait...

For anybody not familiar with Martin Mere, it is essentially a wildlife reserve run by the very deserving Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT).

Away from the Mere which is a huge haven for wildlife, there is a large and very pleasant captive area.

The Captive area contains mainly Wildfowl from all over the world and plays a very important role in the successful breeding of many endangered bird species.

Apart from birds there is a very successful Beaver breeding program and also a similar project concerning Asian Short-Clawed Otters.

This threatened species of Otter really is a beautiful and very playful creature and I really could have stayed and watched them all day as they frolicked in the sun...Truly magical!

Who'd have thought that one of the favourite foods of these captive Otters would have been hard boiled eggs...

Formby & Marshside

A 100+ mile round trip to a couple of my favourite haunts proved more than a little bit disappointing today.
If you were to believe the weatherman and unusually I did today, then this part of North West England was just about the only part of the country to be promised long periods of sunshine!

My first stop of the day was Formby Point, where the first couple of hours were spent on a fruitless search for the last remaining Red Squirrels, which although said to be making a slow recovery from the devastating Squirrel Pox Virus, numbers could be as low as 40.

It really is a heartbreaking situation in one of the last remaining 'strongholds' for the species in England and the speed that the disease has spread is frightening.
Here is a photograph I took of a Red at Formby in late March 2008...

On that day, there were dozens of Squirrels seemingly in good health, all around the pine woodland.
I returned in February 2009 and on that cold winter's day the situation looked dire, with notices posted around the site and wardens telling me that no Squirrels had been seen for weeks.

I suppose you have to put your faith in the experts when they say things are improving at Formby, but after visiting the site on a number of occasions in happier times and witnessing the situation twice as it is in the last 12 months, I can't help feeling no small amount of despair at the plight of the Formby Red Squirrel.

My quota of the promised sunshine was used up in the heavily shadowed pine woods at Formby and by the time I had walked the woodland path to the sand dunes and the sea beyond any evidence of clear blue Sky's were long gone!

Coastal bird life was very quiet...Small groups of Oystercatcher and Knot passing overhead looked unremarkable against the dark grey Sky's.

On the shore I was expecting to see Sanderling and Dunlin at least, but had to settle for the odd Herring and Black Headed Gull.

I wasn't overly optimistic when I got in the car and headed up the coast to Marshside on the southern tip of the Ribble Estuary.

Marshside is perhaps my favourite RSPB Reserve and has been good to me over the years, but sometimes you just get that feeling that it's not going to be your day...

Large numbers of wildfowl were as usual present at Marshside, but rather frustratingly from a photography point of view the birds seemed to favour the far reaches of the Mere!

Teal and Wigeon were in abundance, but these birds which would be regarded as 'prize spots' at my local patch are as common as Mallards at this time of the Year in this part of the world.

As I've mentioned before, my 'buzz' is to get the photograph and although it was a pleasure to see a distant Merlin 'raise' large flocks of wildfowl far across the Mere, I still left Marshside on a bit of a downer.

When in this part of the country, I usually always visit Martin Mere as well as Marshside...These two great sites are only a few miles apart, but as the grey sky's became heavier, the first drops of rain fell and already very cold from a biting sea breeze, I decided to call it a day.