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MIGRATION SLOWDOWN

This Barn Owl was slowed down too, to 1/30th of a second

APART FROM A SMALL NUMBER OF WHIMBRELS still passing through Alston, spring migration seems to be fizzling out now in the lower Ribble Valley. I’m not going to be posting breeding bird news from now on as they tend to attract too many bird photographers but there is still time for the latest migrants, the highest-Arctic-breeding shorebirds to make an appearance like Red Knot and particularly Sanderling. I see the wind is due to veer to the west again and the showers it will bring give us hope of something grounding in our area. The easterlies today were hopeless, with nothing new at Alston where I photographed this Barn Owl the other day. The light levels were too low for anything other than a half-hearted motion blur but it’s a start. There are still plenty of Little Ringed Plovers on view from the Pinfold Lane screens along with regular shelduck, Gadwall and teal. The gathering of hirundines and swifts has been nice too but in reduced numbers now. I can almost feel the rush of air as swifts zoom past close by!

Meanwhile on the riverbank at Ribchester a pair of Common Sandpipers looks to be breeding somewhere nearby and Grey Wagtail is regularly carrying food from the river into the village somewhere. I have tried a few sessions from the benches but there has not been anything of note on the move. I was distracted a few times by the Song Thrush singing from the direction of the Churchgates that imitates whimbrel in its repertoire of mimicry! It is around this time that our attention usually moves uphill to the fell, where there is still lots of rough habitat with some actual food for birds in it.

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DOTTEREL TIME ON PENDLE

Eurasian Dotterel (female), Pendle Hill, 7 May 2021 CLICK ON IMAGES FOR LIGHTBOX

IT’S DOTTEREL TIME AGAIN ON PENDLE! The female first seen on Wednesday was reported again by Ribchester birding pal Phil Larkin early this morning by the path to the trig point and happily it was still present when I got there. The dark feathers in the white breast band clearly match those in Mark Carter’s photo of the 5 May bird on the Lancashire Birding Facebook page. Thanks a lot to Phil who kept tabs on it and waited for me. I owe him a beer! I’ve been saying this for a while that dotties continue to become scarcer and this is only the second on Pendle this spring, an unthinkable state of affairs by 7 May when I first moved to East Lancs in 2005. Like many birds that breed in marginal climatic zones, like on mountain tops in the case of dotterel, its future is not bright, so birders would do well to see them while they still can. This one was bomb-proof and approached me within the minimum focusing distance (5m) several times. Lone birds are often much tamer than groups or ‘trips’ as they are known and it was fabulous to be the only person watching it from time to time. Several passers-by enjoyed it too (after all it is on the interpretive sign by the main gate to the hill at Pendleside) including a group of ‘Public Services’ students from Blackburn College. I have no idea what that course entails but watching a dotterel seems like worthwhile subject matter. I left it where Phil had found it, as a hail shower piled in from the north but was amazed to learn later that birders that I passed on my way down couldn’t refind it. Happily it was still there later in the evening sunshine so presumably it had just hunkered down for a while during the bad weather?

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RIB '21 OSPREY NO.#3

Ribchester Osprey, 5 May CLICK IMAGES FOR LIGHTBOX

MORE SKY-GAZING IN RIBCHESTER WAS REWARDED BY ANOTHER OSPREY TODAY, our third of the spring from the benches and by far the best view so far! Sat by the school at 4.55PM, Phil and I were scanning a beautiful blue sky dotted with cotton wool cumulus clouds, blown in by the northwest wind. Meanwhile, Alexander was telling Liz how he preferred her boxer dogs to birding, when it glided in from the east over Gary Paul’s field. It drifted over the allotments and had a look at the river before heading quickly over the village, mobbed by a couple of Black-headed and Lesser Black-backed Gulls, not far above the roof tops! I am guessing someone else must have seen it pass by? It looks like an adult and it will be interesting if it has been seen anywhere else in East Lancs recently. Although it doesn’t have any rings visible, hopefully these photos can be compared with any others taken?

Stopping to take a look at RADAC property

Gulls hate Ospreys, purely because they look like eagles and have a 1.5m wingspan, they prefer to eat fish of course!

There were some happy faces on the riverbank today but you have to be a little lucky to be in the right place at the right time!

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BLUE-HEADED WAGTAIL AT ALSTON

Blue-headed Wagtail, Alston Reservoirs, 4 May

ANOTHER GREAT FIND BY GAVIN THOMAS, A MALE BLUE-HEADED WAGTAIL was the culmination of a nice selection of grounded passerines at Alston Reservoirs. The April rain showers and northerlies had come around a month late but served to stop some northbound migrants in their tracks. At the weekend a lovely gathering of four wheatears and three male Whinchats was near the northwest corner of No.#1 reservoir, the Whinchats hanging around the tiny marshy patch in the sheep field there. More rain followed over the next couple of days and on 4 May Gavin found the wagtail in more or less the same place. It was super shy and I could hardly get within 50m of it by the time I had finished work etc. I was surprised it stayed so long but needless to say it was gone by the next day. It is a big rarity in East Lancashire but there has been quite a good movement of flava wagtails recently, in fact it’s the third I’e seen within 5km of home this year!

The whimbrel roost continues but numbers have dwindled, maybe dragged away to the new roosting spot near Chipping? The heavy rain also brought a Dunlin and five Common Ringed Plovers to the wetland, which lingered until 5 May. Luckily they survived a bombing run by a Peregrine that blasted low across the pools yesterday evening. Summer migrants are nearly all back now, both whitethroats are singing in the hedgerows along the lane and swifts are now a common sight over the reservoirs. The next few days are historically the best for shorebird passage in East Lancs and the water levels at Alston look great. Fingers crossed!

A wheatear forages on the weedy stone banks of no.#1

A few pixels of Whinchat, Alston Reservoirs

A whimbrel zooms in to roost at Alston Wetland

Common Whitethroat singing at Alston

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