Year ticks

Note: the conditions on Sunday were terrible, so all these photos are of relatively poor quality, and for illustrative purposes only.

The day after I saw David M, he texted me to invite me along on another local bird search. This year I'm keeping a list of all the species I see, alongside searching for new ones, so going up to Fleetwood to revisit the shorelark and others was something I had planned anyway. The weather was terrible - gales, overcast, and occasional showers - but a free lift is a free lift.

Above: the shorelark. Below: a meadow pipit got in on the action.

We went straight to the picnic ground near the marine lakes, and as expected, the shorelark was foraging on the grass (along with a flock of turnstones, one of which is in the background, above). Some other birders were watching it, but dog walkers and other passers by spooked the waders, and the more tame shorelark flew off fairly soon. Not to worry, we went round to the beach, seeking a little shelter behind the dunes. I spotted sanderlings among the turnstones feeding on the shoreline (the tide was in), and then saw a flock of ringed plovers huddled behind the stones, just their faces peeking out (below). When I came to process my shots of this, I realised there were a couple of purple sandpipers among them - if only we'd known!

I found the shorelark itself behind a large rock, before it moved away and eventually flew back to the grassy area. We watched it for a few minutes, before leaving it to another photographer who attempted to creep as close as possible (the bird itself is rather tame, but the turnstones are not). We nipped round the corner to the eastern marine lake, which is mostly drained at present for some sort of maintenance work. This has attracted more gulls and waders than usual, and purple sandpipers have been seen roosting there for a while. After a long time hiding from the wind behind a small building, David made a break for it and found one of these small grey waders in the middle of a large flock of redshanks and turnstones (see if you can spot it, above). Otherwise there were some nice gulls, including great black backed and a handsome common gull.

Above: herring gulls around a GBB - the largest gull species. Below: a common and black headed gull together.

We checked out Fleetwood Marsh nature reserve, which is windswept at the best of times, but the glaucous gull that has been hanging out on a nearby roof was absent, so we finally nipped back to Marton Mere, and sat in the main hide for a while. It was bitterly cold, and the light was fading. Still, it was fun to watch teal displaying - they do a rather funny dance with their heads and tails. Hard to capture in a still image though.