WRECKED SEABIRDS IN RIBCHESTER

View fullsize

Pomarine Skua, Red Bank, Ribchester 4 November 2023

4 NOVEMBER and a photo of an adult skua is posted on a Ribchester residents Facebook page! It is apparently on the path between Boat House and Red Bank, my old local patch. I have walked this path hundreds of times! Within minutes Lee Parnell has zoomed along there and confirmed it as a Pomarine Skua! The first ever twitchable in the ELOC area! Sadly it is not in a good state, appearing exhausted. I was there soon afterwards and we figured out what to do. After lots of phone calls, including to a RSPCA inspector who lives in Rib, we were no further forward. No-one cares about wrecked seabirds anymore, maybe owing to the AI risk? So, with no facilities to look after it, we left it to take its chances and it was inevitably found dead next morning. A sad end for a magnificent bird.

View fullsize

Just over a month earlier, on 29 September, Phil Larkin reported a Northern Gannet in his Ribchester garden!!! Another storm-blown seabird and only slightly more regular in East Lancs than the Pom. The gannet’s fate was uncertain, it was captured in Boyce’s Brook and released on the river. It lingered a while but then disappeared. Now this bird had definitely encountered AI, with one balckened iris. Whether or not it was still suffering is not known but its occurrence was following another severe storm so it may have simply been an AI survivor?

View fullsize

Northern Gannet, Greenside, Ribchester 29 September 2023

POMARINE SKUA ON THE FYLDE

View fullsize

Pomarine Skua, Cocker's Dyke, Lancashire

BETWEEN SLEET AND HAIL SHOWERS, A POMARINE SKUA on the Fylde at Pilling was the main focus of a day out with the Morrises. Unfortunately it was in a very sorry state, dropping its left wing and appearing quite sluggish and reluctant to fly. However, it has a store of food, which it returns to every few hours, a macabre pile of dead birds, presumably put out for it, although we heard from someone that it had moved these birds itself? It was nice to get a good look at its plumage anyway, a very typical first winter bird.

My first Pom was on a seawatch from Seaton Sluice in Northumberland more than 30 years ago but I haven't seen that many anywhere since with a scatter of sightings. I could do with seeing some more of them but one look at this bird on the ground and there was never a question of it being anything else with its heavy Glaucous Gull-like bill. A Little Egret and an adult Mediterranean Gull at Cocker's Dyke, few Twite from Knott End Esplanade and a Firecrest with Long-tailed Tits at Marton Mere also brightened up an enjoyable day out. Thanks Pete.

View fullsize

Pete Morris at Cocker's Dyke - there was a cold wind today, I don't think the guy next to us was worried about us nicking his scope and tripod.