Short-eared Owl

I spent yesterday on the Dee Estuary visiting a couple of my favourite locations.
Starting the day at Parkgate hoping to see Short-eared Owls hunting, I was greeted on arrival by 3 Owls, but unfortunately they were at a distance and in poor light.

Next I spent 4 hours or so at Burton Mere RSPB trying to capture Bearded Tits.
Again I saw the birds but they didn't really show at the front of the reed beds, preferring to stay tantalizingly a few feet inwards.

The highlight of the day at Burton was the first ever recorded sighting of a White Stork on the reserve and the buzz around the place was electric!
I saw the bird from a great distance on two occasions and on the second it was being mobbed by around 20+ Gulls.
I did get a few record shots, but even at a 100% crop the Stork is tiny in the frame so I won't bother sharing.
Apparently the White Stork was sighted again on site, but of course its anyone's guess to how long it hangs around.

Finally after the excitement of Burton Mere, I returned to Parkgate in hope of another crack at the Short-eared Owls.
By this time it was around 3pm and after an half hour wait a Owl arrived on the scene.

The Shorty hunted along the marsh for around 45 minutes, covering a great deal of ground in a characteristic figure-of-eight pattern, with just a couple of resting periods in-between flights.
In total the bird made four flybys pass my position near the Boat House...A great end to a very memorable day.

Dee Estuary

First visit for a couple of months to the Dee Estuary and a mini tour of the usual haunts...
I must say, it wasn't the best day on the photography side of things and matters weren't helped by some very strong winds.
It was however a very good day for sightings...all be it many at a distance!

Things started well enough at Burton Marsh with a lovely close encounter with a male Reed Bunting...

If there is a better place in the north west of England for seeing Little Egrets then I'd like to know about it!
I counted 12 Egrets at Burton this morning, which is the most I've ever seen in one place at one time...

Next stop was the short trip to Inner Marsh Farm RSPB, where I was greeted by this Goldfinch as I walked down the path past the meadows...

A couple of distant Avocet on the main spit and 20 or so Black-Tailed Godwit threatened to come closer until all hell broke loose at the sight of a Peregrine Falcon patrolling the reserve...

The Peregrine soon flew off in the direction of Burton and order was restored.

Not long after, the Black-Tailed Godwit, flew in for the closest (but not as close as I'd like) views of the afternoon...

Numbers of Little Egret at Inner Marsh were somewhere approaching double figures, but there was a lot of toing and froing between here and Burton so getting an exact count proved difficult.

It wasn't all about birds today and the mammals were represented by this Rabbit who seemed to have a liking for the grass at the edge of the path...

Last stop was Parkgate and yet more Little Egret sightings...Another 3 to be precise!

Despite the wind, it was a lovely sunny day and quite warm when the gales subsided.

Any birder will tell you, that on a warm sunny day at Parkgate, there is only one thing left to do after the birding is finished...Visit the famous Nicholls Ice Cream shop!

A great day's birding and a Rum & Raisin Cornet made up for any photographic disappointment.

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.