Sunday 7 January 2007

7th January - Sabbatical

Nothing much happened today in this area - everyone appears to be 'birded out' with the most prolific local lister resorting to shopping in Ambleside!

Heysham Obs
Ad & 1st W Little Gull Heysham 2 outfall

Ad & 1st W Med Gull north harbour wall

Brief scan of harbour produced 19 Shag

Broadway
The elusive Med Gull P96 may have disassociated itself from its usual haunt, Lancaster City Football ground (peruse the league table), as it was on the rocks by the Broadway Hotel in late afternoon. This bird has an interesting ringing history:

Poland FM11199 (Darvic red P96 (formerly P70)
Ringed Skoki Duze, Wroclawek, Poland AdF 19/5/01
Seen Battery car park, Morecambe 31/1/03
Retrapped and reringed: Skoki Duze 19/5/03
Seen Morecambe Stone jetty (with 5HR) 8/3-18/3/04
Seen urban Lancaster, mainly Marsh estate area winter 2004/5
Seen urban Lancaster, mainly Marsh estate area autumn 2005-11/3/06
Seen urban Lancaster, mainly Marsh Estate area about 25/7/06-mid Nov
Seen Morecambe Broadway area of promenade 7/1/07

This bird was paired up with the famous Morecambe winter resident 5HR (now presumed dead) and nested at Skoki-Duze in 2003. As it was similarly paired up with 5HR whilst at Morecambe in spring 2004, it was expected to nest at Skoki-Duze again. However this did not happen and presumably they nested together at an unknown site. There was no evidence of these two operating as a pair in the 2005 breeding season and 5HR was not seen after bonfire night 2005!

Lune valley
8 Whooper Swan still in the floodplain fields between Hornby and Melling - view distantly from high point layby on A683.

A cursory glance for the Mandarin at Hatlex proved a negative experience.