Heavy showers in the morning with just a couple of light ones in the afternoon. A lighter SW wind.
These Narrow-bordered Five-spot Burnet were in the field between Moss estate and the railway line marking the eastern edge of the recording area - Janet
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| Narrow-bordered Five-spot Burnet - first of the year |
Middleton Nature Reserve (Janet)
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| Only seven cygnets remain. The other was found injured and separated from Mum by an evening visitor. It was taken to Wolfwood animal sanctuary where it will be well cared for. The extent or cause of the injury is not known |
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| The Mallard young are nearly as big as Mum now |
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| Black-Tailed Skimmer |
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| Common Darter |
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| Common Blue |
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| Red-Headed Cardinal beetle - more shots to follow...... |
A sizeable feeding group of Long-Tailed Tits included several youngsters.
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| Juvenile Long-Tailed Tits |
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| Common Whitethroat feeding young. It seems Cardinal beetles are on today's menu |
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| The male Pheasant was again strutting his stuff |
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| This female wasn't impressed! |
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| Dunnock |
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| Another Bee Orchid, this one just off the main path near the Water pumping station |
Heysham skear (Malcolm)
I went out at low water, it isn't much of a walk on these very low neap tides.
No Eider or Great Crested grebes seen.
Red-breasted Merganser pair
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| Red-breasted Mergansers |
Little Egret 4 - this one catches quite a large Common Goby.
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| Little Egret with a Common Goby - this is about as large as Gobies get |
The only waders were 500 Oystercatchers
Gulls 350 on the skear, but most just resting, another 150 on the sea further out. I'm sure numbers will increase again as we move back to spring tides, but not as many as last month.
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| This Herring gull was trying to prize a suitable sized mussel from a rock. With no success as I watched. |
Imperial Rd (Malcolm)
I called in on my way home.
The male Stonechat is still taking food to the nest.
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| Not sure what this beastie is....... |
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| .........but this looks like a Cardinal beetle Apparently, despite their bright colouration they are not poisonous to birds, just distasteful. I don't suppose that matters when you are stuffing it down another's throat! |
Grey Heron 1
Song Thrush 1 singing
Common Whitethroat seen
Chiffchaff singing
Cetti's warbler singing - to the wast of the marsh
Sedge wabler seen
Buzzard at least 1
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| This one flew to the copse carrying nothing |
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| It settled on a branch, but the Magpie wasn't happy..... |
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| .......and managed to scare it off! |
This Buzzard or more likely another was calling almost constantly from the copse.
