THE WOBBLY CALLS OF PINK-FOOTED GEESE OVER THE VILLAGE has been a feature this weekend so far. In fact a couple of flocks have passed over the house in the dark while I was looking at my photos for this post. There has been a massive push of Pinkfeet over the last few days down the east coast, Twitter has been alive with them so it has been great to join in the excitement as some of them chose to cross the Pennines and fly down the Ribble Valley. They have all been heading west here, a total of 236 in 7 flocks since the first on Friday evening. It is fantastic to have them back!
This blog post could easily have been ‘Golden Plover - new for me in Ribchester’ instead as one flew over calling at Red Bank, also heading west, presumably a little lower than usual thanks to the low cloud base/mist. Phil has seen them in the fields at Salesbury before but not in recent years. It brought up 120 species for me in Ribchester, not bad for somewhere with no notable habitats. Other migrants today included a few summer visitors still around - by coincidence c.120 hirundines on the wires at Osbaldeston Hall and hawking low over the river there was a magnificent sight. They were mostly swallows but included around 10 House Martins as well.
A late Common Whitethroat was in an isolated riverside hawthorn . We tallied seven Common Chiffchaffs today, including one daft bird singing at Red Bank. Another very conspicuous bird at the moment is jay, they seem to be everywhere in the northwest right now, or maybe just more visible as they rush around stashing food for the winter? The juvenile Osprey seems to have moved on now though, it took my 5KO sightings to 13 this year! Finally, I thought our eight Little Egrets was pretty good until I learned that 46 roosted at Sawley this evening!
