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Leighton Moss RSPB

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PURPLE HERON AT LEIGHTON MOSS

Purple Heron (juvenile), Leighton Moss [CLICK PHOTO FOR LIGHTBOX]

Another grand day out with Mark Varley was completely focused on getting some acceptable photos of the Purple Heron at Leighton Moss, however, we saw a lot of other good birds during our six and a half hours in the Grisedale Hide today. A Great Egret, a couple of Little Egrets and the now outnumbered(!) Grey Heron also made an appearance. Two Marsh Harriers (a very worn old female and a juvenile) were quartering the reedbed and an Osprey flew over heading southwest. A female Sparrowhawk and a Common Buzzard completed the raptor line up. Mark spotted an otter in the heron's favourite feeding pool but it soon made off, probably owing to the ultra noisy hide (one of the downsides of birding Leighton these days). Unfortunately the forecasted rain arrived earlier than expected and we headed back to the cafe to warm up (it's only 3 September!) and buy lots of pin badges (they've got an outstanding selection here these days). The RSPB staff in the reserve centre were really helpful today, I don't really recall that from previous visits. Great job!

While I was looking into previous records in Lancashire (11 to 2008, with all but two of them at Leighton) it was interesting to see that Leighton had a superb run in the 1970s with eight of its nine records between 1970-77. I think this is also the first juvenile for Lancashire as well as the first autumn record. My first visit to Leighton was 3 May 1975 and amazingly I now see that there was one the day after that stayed for 6 days! So here I am catching up with it more than 42 years later!

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LEIGHTON MOSS SHOREBIRDS

Ruff from the new Eric Morecambe hide (Mike Watson) 

LEIGHTON MOSS'S ALLEN POOL WAS FULL OF SHOREBIRDS this afternoon. Joined by Mark Varley I had some great close views of juveniles of some of the c.20 Curlew Sandpipers, ruffs and Icelandic Black-tailed Godwits. Also here were four Little Stints, two Spotted Redshanks, a few lapwings, one oystercatcher and a lot of Common Redshanks. The influx of Curlew Sandpipers has been one of the events of the autumn so far and this number at Leighton is quite exceptional. Around 10 Little Egrets was barely noticed, as usual, how times have changed! This was the first time I have been in the new hides. They are the same style as the new Griesdale hide, like large greenhouses with loads of glass that doesn't conceal the occupants. I noticed this caused the shorebirds to flush a couple of times, when folks rushed to the windows or made sudden noisy movements. The window frames prevent easy viewing when standing up as well and the seats are too low so in a nutshell they were disappointing. I often wonder how much (or little) thought goes into the design of hides on bird reserves but the RSPB's move to become 'nature's home' also tells me that they are no longer interested in birders, which is a shame. 

The new Eric Morecambe hide would make a good greenhouse or a potting shed

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