A ‘grey male’ Hen Harrier powers north across the fell in the late afternoon sunshine CLICK ON IMAGE FOR LIGHTBOX
WHAT A WELCOME BACK TO GANNOW FELL! A lovely walk in the evening sunhine with Phil in ‘High Altitude Ribchester’ was further lit up by a grey male Hen Harrier (we didn’t see it well enough to rule out a 3CY bird - thanks to my ID guru Pete Morris). It appeared over the main bog and simply flew north towards Bowland without changing course. Although they do not breed far away Hen Harriers are rare on Longridge Fell and never seem to hang around even though it looks like they ought to! Also here raven, stonechat and Red Grouse were all new for the year. This is the highest I’ve been in the valley so far but it is still less than 3 miles from home. It was also lovely to hear both skylark and curlew singing here too this afternoon and some of the grouse were quite bold, with inflated red combs and lots of clucking display flights. As I got out of the car back at home a pair of curlews flew over there too, I am lucky to live somewhere this happens!
I wasn’t expecting this male Red Grouse to fly onto a wall in front of me! Err Willow Ptarmigan. No chance of me getting used to that name!
My morning walk around the village was also quite productive after a cold start. There was a definite push of gulls upstream with 33 Common Gulls being the most I’ve seen here in a morning. Black-headed Gulls exceeded 500 and there were a few Lesser Black-backed Gulls, newly returned from points south. A couple of Mediterranean Gulls flew east among the Black-headeds. Their call reminds me of Frankie Howerd ‘s ‘Ooh’ as in ‘Ooh Matron!’ . Curlews were in double figures again with several singing in the fields around the village and lapwings were also very active, songflighting along the lane to Lower Barn Farm. It is so uplifting to have them back again! Groups of insanely noisy oystercatchers chased each other at the river, where there are now three pairs of Stock Doves which appear to all be squabbling over squatting rights to the stone barn of Waterside Farm. There was still a small flock of Fieldfares along the lane today but no Redwings again, they pushed off in the cold weather and have not returned. There may stil be a few hanging on in the woods but I didn’t see any. The day-roosting Tawny Owl I have been watching lately was back on its usual perch deep in ivy and a few other interesting birds like bullfinch and Little Grebe helped me over the 50 species mark. February now stands at 75, the highest total of any month so far, partly thanks to Phil’s Black-tailed Godwit in the week!
The regular Tawny Owl could be bothered to look at me today! Well, squint at least.
A (Northern) Lapwing in display flight, with club-shaped wings spread and whirring through the air. We’ere lucky to still be able to hear its lovely song in Rib!
One of today’s Med Gulls, its black hood still far from complete.