My New Blog.

The download time on this blog is apparently significant due to the single page format , so i've created another one: http://www.babb2.blogspot.com/ which will be the place I will post blog entries from now on.

Local birding: Brockholes Wetland LWT - 9th August 2008.

Put the time in during Spring and you should connect with an Osprey at Brockholes, but you can never be confident of connecting with one in autumn. So this bird, my 11th locally this year and dramatic as always, was both welcome and somewhat unexpected. The bird appeared as a heavy, prolonged spell of rain was setting in and to see one actually catch a fish onsite was an ambition realised.

Local birding: Brockholes Wetland LWT - 3rd Aug 2008.

Finally caught up with the Little Egret, which has present on+off for the past few days. It spent an hour on the Main Pool early-mid pm having appeared to have flown in from the SW. When not onsite, and thats most of the time, I suspect its feeding somewhere downriver between Brockholes Bridge and Walton-le-Dale.

Another shot of the Egret below and a 1st summer Hobby, both by Bill Gregory.

Local birding: Hobby and Med Gulls - Brockholes Wetland LWT - 2nd Aug 2008.

Record shots of 1st summer Med Gull above and juvenile (right) below. Both unfortunately unringed.

Local birding: Brockholes Quarry LWT - 31st July 2008.

Record Shots

Above: 1st summer Hobby. Below: Icelandic Black-tailed Godwits.

Local birding: Brockholes Quarry LWT - 26th July 2008.

An idyllic day spent on the local patch in beautiful weather enjoying some quality local birds: Hobby, a moulting 2nd summer-3rd winter Med Gull and the 8th site record of Marsh Harrier, a juvenile high south at 13:40.

Local birding: Brockholes Quarry LWT - 15th July 2008.

The first autumn flock of Dunlin (7) included a colour ringed bird. Hopefully the poor videograbs taken on very high magnification will be enough to clinch the details, given it took nearly 2.5 hours to obtain these!

Details as follows, as best as I could make out.

Left Leg: No ring on Tibia. White over Blue on Tarsus.

Right leg: White (poss metal?) ring on Tibia. Blue over White on Tarsus.

I can't recall ever personally having seen a colour ringed Dunlin before and would love to clinch this. Will update blog entry in due course if successful. A Hobby over Preston Old Road at Hoghton on the drive home was a nice bonus.

Gannet - Lower Foulridge Reservoir, Lancs - 13th July 2008.

Above: 2cy Northern Gannet, Lower Foulridge Reservoir, Lancs, 12th-13th July 2008.

Found early evening of the 12th by Burnley birder Gary Waddington, this bird to the best of my knowledge represents the first truly twitchable Gannet in East Lancashire. Indeed it was an East Lancs tick for some local birders of c40 years standing.

I arrived at 10:20 on the 13th to be confronted by the surreal sight of the bird on the water and at 10:42 the bird took flight, gradually gaining height as it did ever wider circuits of the reservoir until finally seen circling away to the east, at great height, at 11:03. I left feeling optimistic that the bird stood a decent chance of making it back to the coast, and it came as some surprise mid-afternoon to hear it was back on the reservoir!

EDIT: The bird was last seen heading SW at 15:43 on 14th July. Hopefully it made it back to the coast.

Above & below: Ringlets, 15+ were in a small grassy area nr Rowley Lake, Burnley.

Local birding: Brockholes Quarry - 9th July 2008.

The superb juv Black-necked Grebe is present for the third day on No1 Pit. This species has now been recorded at the site for the third consecutive year.

This delightful juv Common Redstart is only the third site record in the period Aug 10th 1998-9th July 2008, and a Brockholes tick for Myself, 9 years 11 months after adopting the site as my local patch.... and thousands of hours later! Everything in context, the pleasure I got from this bird was immense, thats the magic of local patch birding. Previous site records: a male on 23rd April 2006 and a juv on 22nd July 2007.

Also an adult Green Sandpiper, one of two birds on+off in the past week.

Local birding: Black-necked Grebe - Brockholes Quarry LWT, Lancs - 7th July 2008.

This juv Black-necked Grebe on No1 Pit (aka the largest lake) is the fourth record of the species (totalling 5 individuals) at the site in the period Aug 10th 1998-July 7th 2008. Of these, Two have been juveniles, both occuring in July (22nd-26th July 2001 & 7th July 2008), one in non-breeding plumage from 15th-23rd Sept 2006 and a stunning pair on 6th May 2007.

Local birding: 4th July 2008

A magic local days birding was highlighted by Hobbies hawking Insect prey at Brockholes. 2 Green Sandpiper also present.

The evening was spent watching local Barn & Long-eared Owls, reeling Grasshopper Warbler and 3 (1ad, 2x 2nd sum) Mediterranean Gull.