14th to 15th January Southport Birding. Snow Goose and Saltmarsh Birds.

 

Donations : Acorns

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/GaryPrescott2022 

Many thanks to . . . 

Jayne Grosvenor, Jane & Andy Revell, Louise, Stuart Griffiths, M & D Shaw, Dave & Sue White, Janette Lowndes, Bart, Lise Hanson, Maria Hill, Phil V, Chris Elmer, Sue Murphy, Nicky, John Hague, Mike, Kimberley Bills, Norma Hines, Rob Gilbert, Julia, Colin Graham, Sarah Moreton, Lizzy, Lisa Hillier, Rob Leech, &P. 

Donations : RSPB

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/bikingbirdervii-2022

Many thanks to . . . 

Nicky M, Terri Akers, Anne Beckett, Maria Hill, Mark Carter, P.

RSPB staff at Lochwinnoch RSPB Reserve

        Time flies by when you're a cyclist on the road. . .

        Can't believe it is a week since I last blogged.

Anyway, let's see. What's happened? What have I seen, who have I met and where have I been?

14-15th January 2022      Southport

        Out early to try to see a Snow Goose, I arrive at the site of the last sighting, Plex Moss but no Snow Goose. Hundreds of Pink-footed Geese are close to the road, with lots more amongst some sheep being hidden somewhat by a line of Silver Birch trees.

        Red-legged Partridge* is calling somewhere nearby and soon shows itself, bird number   on the BIGBY list. More Red-legged Partridge are close by scuttling around a farm barnyard.

        After waiting and searching for around an hour and a half, my cheers could be heard in the town centre, four miles away as a large flock of arriving Pink Feets contains the adult Snow Goose*.

        Unfortunately it lands with the partially hidden geese and cannot be seen on the deck, so to speak. Still a Snow Goose is a good bird to get for the year list and I am thrilled by its arrival.

        Two birders arrive and we chat for an hour or so, Dave and Daniel Gornall.

        Danny talked about his experiences as assistant warden on Fair Isle, a place I call Paradise.

        The rest of my day I spend cycling to Marshside where I saw a female, ringtail, Hen Harrier,* which I almost totally failed to take a photograph of.

    

        Up at at them next morning to . . . watch the cricket! Why do I punish myself? I awake confident of an England revival of sorts. Oh well, less said about the Test match the better.

        Off to Banks with an unladen bike, heaven! I go through Hesketh Park and remember seeing my first Smew there back in the winter of 1977, a redhead.

      Either pushing or cycling, I go along the high sea wall towards Banks afte passing an erratic boulder at Crossens. Back when I taught at a Secondary school, Christ the King, in Southport in 1977-8, I arranged to meet a group of sixth formers here for a morning's birding.

      It is a beautifully sunny, windless day and a large number of Linnets* fly past with a few of them landing in the farside to me branches of a large tree.

        Geese are out on the Marsh as I look towards Blackpool with its Tower and Rollercoaster prominent. The nearest flock of Geese are Canadas but behind them is a small group of four Barnacle Geese.*

Further along, a birder, Ian from north of the Ribble Estuary, tells me that three Russian White-fronted Geese* are in long grass not too far off. Indeed within a few minutes the geese walk out into the open and go onto my BIGBY list.

    

    The day really is fabulous weather-wise and with new birds going onto the list, a successful one too. After chatting about birds for half an hour or so and after a passing birder, Ken, telling me that I wasn't the Biking Birder, was I? LOL. When I gave him one of my business cards he said that he'd met before whilst I was on one of my past Biking Birder adventures. Interestingly his birding companion, Paul Sands, told us all about his career as a stain-glassed window maker.

        I bid farewell to the trio and cycle a mile or so further along the seawall. Reaching  an access point for cattle, two birders, a local expert Phil Johnson and Sheelagh from Cheshire are there and conversation ensues.

        New birds for the BIGBY list too are there, Peregrine,* Merlin* and a flock of Twite* land briefly on rocks beside a nearby pool but all too soon fly away further down the seawall.

Peregrine

                                    Twite

                                    Merlin

        Back to the geese spot, a face I recognise turns out to be the famous and young, curly haired (I'm jealous!) Sam Viles of Birdwatch magazine and Birdguides. Sam tells me that the magazine is doing a large promotion of local birding. Music to my ears as a passionate Green Birder, I check out the article on Birdguides on returning to my hotel room. 

#LocalBigYear:

https://www.birdguides.com/articles/localbigyear-celebrating-the-joy-of-local-birding/?fbclid=IwAR0aedKoJiHQkAcx0wJvexja5UNjPHaCHYk_va0347QY0ZGPcNKjxl-hG3Q 

   

         Written by the superb birder, Josh Jones, the initiative could bring a lot more people to realise just how fabulous Green Birding locally, as advocated in the wonderful book, Green Birding by Richard Gregson.

Charity Pledges These are the names of people who have made a pledge to pay so much per bird species seen at the end of the year to either one of the charities I am supporting or to both.

Lee Dark, Mary & Brian Prescott, Joshua Prescott, Rebecca Prescott and Les Oxley-Stoker, 

Massive thanks to everyone who has either made a donation or made a pledge. Wonderful.

BCNU 

BIKING BIRDER VI 2022 13th January Patch with a Friend and Return to an Old Patch, Southport, Merseyside

 

Please donate to the charities I am supporting this year.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/bikingbirdervii-2022

 

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/GaryPrescott2022

        After a wonderful evening with Jan and Neill Hunt, a fantastic couple, who had got in touch to offer conversation and a bed, with Neill being a passionate birder and twitcher, Neill and I head off for his local patch in the morning.

        A capped ex-refuse tip was covered with trees, bramble and grass with a great network of pathways enabling all areas to be accessed. Neill and I walk so many paths for a couple of hours and Neill tells of those magic patchwork moments that mean so much to a patchworking birder. 

        As with the previous evening, conversation between two birders is always going to be about birds seen. The morning walk goes quickly with talk of relative rares, breeding birds and possibilities.

        Off to a local hotel, Prince of Wales on Lord Street, Southport, after thank you to Jan and Neill, I am soon out to walk to the pier and then along the shoreline to Marshside RSPB reserve.

        No sign of the reported Twite at the pier, there are a few Redshanks,* new bird for the BIGBY list. Very few birds around except for a lone Skylark* and a large number of Pink-footed Geese are just visible in the tall grass until they reveal their numbers by taking off. 

        Marshside was my own patch back in 1977-8. Back then I lived on Marshside Road with a future Mother-in-law, (!) above a wool shop owned by her. Jean Alexander, Hilda Ogden, lived nearby and I used to see her on the bus home from where I worked at that time, as a teacher at a Secondary Catholic School, Christ the King.

        Being back now, changes were few with a closed down sand-winning plant now a bush-covered lump and the estuarine mud retreting far into the distance over a sea of saltmarsh grass. Areas that used to have large high tide roosts of waders were now totally covered by the grass. Otherwise it was much as I remembered it from 45 years ago.

        At the RSPB reserve there a lovely lady, Annie, was feeding a Robin, whom she called Bob-Bob. 

        The walk back to Southport had the setting sun going down behind the long pier and an evening was spent thanking people for donations, thanking people for their support and kind messages and spent updating this blog and the BIGBY list on Bubo Listing.