Game for a Lark.

A timely trip to Liverpool and a text from Pete Kinsella had me scuttling over to Weld Road where the weekends Shorelark was still messing around on the beach. A 1/4 mile walk lugging the camera was worth while as the horny little devil showed extremely well - at one point running towards the assembled throng of six people!

A rare bird in the N West & only my 4th sighting in the region! Still yet to see one in Cheshire although I'm pretty sure one will be seen soon  at West Kirby and will unfortunately depart before I can get there!

This stray waif seems to be part of a national influx with small parties turning up all along the east coast from Lincolnshire to Kent.

Brents and thrushes.

The Hilbre Brent flock is building up nicely with 100+ birds - including the Irish colour ringed bird. Not bad considering this flock is a fairly recent phenomonen. Brents are the most charismatic of geese and their call brings back memories of going to see my first ones on the Essex coast in the early 70's.

The Hilbre birds certainly provided a spectacle  in the early morning light Sunday morning.

A small overhead passage of birds was noted with the best probalby being a flyover brambling calling with amongst a flock of Chaffinches that came in off the sea. A few Robins were grounded wit hsingles of both Blackbird and Song Thrush. Purple Sandpiper numbers are slowly increasing as are Turnstone with at least one Hilbre colour ringed bird being present.

Leaving Hilbre before high tide it was a toss up whether to go north to Southport to see a Shorelark that had been discovered the previous day or join Allan at the lighthouse and try and find our own birds. The lighthouse and the promise of a cuppa and an apple pie from the cafe won!

Thrushes were very much in evidence with 50 -60 Blackbirds around the Lingham Lane / pony paddocks area along with smaller numbers of Song Thrushes - including 6 together in one paddock. The only other sign of winter movement were good numbers of Meadow Pipits and a single female Blackcap.

A few Mistle Thrushes were also knocking around with 6 -7 together in another paddock and one bird along Lingham Lane - as was the semi-resident Grey Wagtail.

All in all a good day - especially if you include the possible Jack Snipe flushed from a flooded pond margin and a possible Water Rail heard deep in a reed mace choked pond. No sign of any Snow Buntings reported at West Kirby though...............

Ring-necked Duck in Cheshire

A phone call from Mark Payne alerted me to the fact a Ring-necked Duck had been reported in Cheshire on Astbury Mere near Congleton. A Cheshire 'lifer' for me and only about the 3 - 4th record I think.With the long staying Staffs bird a few miles down the road having seemingly moved on this morning it was felt this was the same bird! Grabbing the camera I set off to pick up Mark and phoned Podster & Malc to see if they wanted a lift. Pod was on the way back from Norfolk but Malc joined Mark and me and we were soon standing alongside a windswept Astbury Mere.

The bird was soon located albeit distantly with the Aythea flock and we walked around the edge of the mere for better view.

To me the head shape looks wrong! Mark checked the photographs of the Staffs bird on Surfbirds and the last one posted in late Ocotber showed the same pale patch around the ear coverts. The bird is clearly not in full breeding plumage and rather than being an adult we reckoned it was a first winter male. Hopefully the longer crown feathers will develop during the winter (if it sticks around) resulting in a more usual head profile. This bird caused a lot of head scratching when it first turned up at Westport Lake before expert opinion finally decided it was a Ring-necked Duck & not a hybrid. The bill pattern is spot on for  RN Duck - its just the head shape that's worrying.........................

Menawhile, garden birding whilst nursing a hangover after two consecutive nights on the p*ss, paid dividends when a Chiffchaff alerted me to its presence by calling. It spent an hour in the garden - mainly in the thick of a Fuchsia bush - before flying off. The call was slightly strange - reminiscent of a juvenile Chiffchaff, whislt the plumage was certainly cold grey / brown. One of the eastern races???

Plenty of activity on the feeders and I narrowly missed an awesome shot of the male Sparrowhawk that, completely unaware of my presence, flew in in at hedge height and landed on a post about 3 metres away. Unfortunately as I lifted the camera he lifted his wings and shot off.

Great views of the resident Blue Tits eating the pulp from Hawthorn berries. It craned its neck round to look at me when it heard the camera shutter.

Sign of the times.

Cheshire West & Chester Council, or whatever they're now called, have taken to putting up these signs in areas where fly tipping isa nuisance. I've never understood why anyone would drive to a remote lane to dump rubbish when its probably quicker to drive to the municipal waste recycling centre. One such blighted spot is near me - a quiet rural lane with obviously no camera's or anyhwere to put one!

When the sign was first installed I was pretty sure it wouldn't take long before the hardened fly tippers realsied there was no way there could be a camera anywhere near.

Sure enough I found these yesterday:

Very quiet on the birding front with only the occasional flyover Skylark and three Bullfinches of note over the house. Nationally debate has raged over a Greenish Warbler in Cornwall. Observors on site were quite happy for it to be Greenish but certain people who hadn't seen the bird or photgraphs decided it was a Green Warbler. Luckily sonnogram analysis proved it to be Greenish & not Green leaving a few eggy faces all round.

The local Long-tailed tit population seems to have exploded with flocks regularly visiting the garden. Great little birds but I never seem to be able to get good shots of them as whenever they show well I seem not to have the camera with me.

On a more serious note I had my first Harlequin Ladybird in the garden yesterday. As I brushed against the hedge it must have landed on me and the first I knew was when I felt a painful bite. One ex-Harlequin.

Skylark migration.

A beautiful clear moonlit night last night and I stood outside about 10.30 listening to Redwings calling as they flew overhead. Next thing I knew I was listening to a Skylark! At night? I'd always thought they were diurnal migrants. A quick internet search turned this up:

Night-migrating skylarks (Alauda arvensis) were captured during four successive autumns in France. The study aimed at detecting a possible influence of the lunar cycle on the nocturnal migration of this species. Though nocturnal postnuptial migration of the skylarks can occur during every phase of the moon, main nocturnal movements occurred when the moon was in its waxing gibbous phase. This phase gives the best conditions for migration because from the very beginning of night, it provides the necessary horizon for individuals to navigate and its light allows the use of topographic cues. In addition it allows the species to benefit from optimal conditions of illumination for almost a week.

Checked phase of moon at moment and its waxing gibbous! Just goes to show you're never to late to learn something new!

Just sortedsome photographs out and found this one of the Eastern-crowned Warbler. Unbelievably the golf buggy made it all the way from St Mary's. No wonder it took them two days!

More Eastern Delights and a cold dish of revenge.

What a cracking weekend:

Benitez's brinkmanship strikes again.

And the belief that Torres has messed with the head of the formidable Vidic since taking him to the cleaners in Liverpool's 4-1 win at Old Trafford last season was only underscored by the Serb's ham-fisted attempts to mete out his own form of physical intimidation.

Three times in three games he has failed to survive the 90 minutes against Liverpool and the cruel jibe is already doing the rounds that "trick or treat" children will turn up at Vidic's house on Halloween wearing Torres masks.

Oh yes and the score was 2 - 0 to Liverpool. After all the jibes from my Utd supporting mates about red balloon's they've suddenly gone very coy about responding to texts!!!

Back to the birds - a late decision Saturday night to get up Sunday and travel to the east coast where Red-flanked Bluetail & Dusky Warbler were still present at Bempton / Flamborough resulted in a flurry of phone calls with Pod & Mark accepting lifts.

We arrived at Bempton to find the Bluetail hadn't been seen since early morning. Many people were standing (and a few talking at the top of their voices) around the small feeding station waiting for it to reappear. With limited cover it became obvious within 20 minutes that a) the bird wasn't there & b) it was unlikely to show with all the noise so we split up and searched different areas. A couple of hours later Mark came back to say he'd met someone who'd seen it on the approach lane about 400 m from where it was last seen so we headed that way. Finally catching up with the bird we were soon joined by a massed throng and decided to leave for nearby North Landing.

Unfortunately the Dusky Warbler wasn't playing ball and despite both Pod & I hearing it call and having brief views it didn't show for Mark and we reluctantly left it and went for a pint nearby before driving home!

As an aside, Pod, being a mischevious kind of person, sat in a ditch along the approach lane to the car park at Bempton playing Red-flanked Bluetail call at full volume on his mobile. Mark & I could clearly hear it from 20 m away. Not one person stopped..................Even if they didn't recognise the call you'd have thought someone would have checked it out.
A great weekends birding - Eastern-crowned Warbler, Red-flanked Bluetail, Dusky Warbler and Red-backed Shrike. Amazingly I've now seen Red-flanked Bluetail three times in four years. Not bad for a species that not so long ago was the stuff of dreams and a major rarity.

Eastern-crowned Warbler.

They came from far afield, weapons of choice jangling in the crisp air of an October morning. Slowly they shuffled into position, minds in turmoil, fearing the worst  and waited......................That familiar knot in the stomach as the gloom gave way to dawn on the east coast.  A rag tag army of vastly different ages, sizes, shapes and expereince. Would their quarry still be there? Would they see it? How would they explain to their boss why they weren't at their desks? Umm - what were the identifying features again? What was it called? Anyone see it yet? What was that?. Oh shit, I think that was it'. 'Whose on it?' 'What tree - they're all friggin sycamores with dead leaves'. 'Turn that phone off'.

The story starts on Thursday night when the pager blasted out its mega alert tone- Eastern-crowned Warbler, South Shields. WTF? Apparently initially identified as a Yellow-browed Warbler it was correctly identifed from photo's. Part of me wished the bird would disppear overnight as rearranging my Friday work load was going to be difficult.

Positive news at  first light Friday morning from the shuffling masses meant a rapid reappraisal of the in-tray and by midday we were off. Joined on the M56 by Podster &  Paul Derbyshire we made good time and arrived on site around 14.30 to find a crowd of around 160 well behaved birders peering into Trow Quarry. Expecting to be peering up into the tree tops we were pleasantly suprised to find oursleves looking down into the trees albeit distantly.

Not the best pictures in the World but they show all the relevant features! People had been predicting the arrival of this species to our shores and after poring over weather charts a 'big' bird had been predicted for this autumn. Pod had even commented that he hoped it was somewhere affordable and not on Shetland or the Scilly's. A two and a half hour drive was exactly right! With Allan, Frank & Kendo Nagasaki connecting just before we did and Malc travelling with Fred Fearn poor old Al Orton was left sweating on the Scilly's before reluctantly handing back his golf buggy and managing to grab an ealier flight. Luckily for him & Groucho it is still there this morning.