The house has been more akin to Clapham Junction than a pool of calm over the past week with numerous visitors, sleepovers and the like. So after dropping off another of my daughter's friends off at Blackburn Station this morning, I decided that I should make good use of the early-ish start and get some birding in. So I headed for Lytham.
Just as the sun was rising I was watching five Tundra Bean Geese and a lone Pink-footed Goose in a field on Lytham Moss. Showing really quite well, their darker plumage (than pink-foot), narrow white tip to the tail and yellow-strapped bill stood out. Normally you're searching for perhaps one in amongst thousands of pink-feet so to have them stanmding out on their own was a treat. Anyway, my mini-twitch continued to Fairhaven where I found the female Scaup amongst the Pochard and Tufties and then onto Warton Bank where the Great White Egret obligingly flew in in front of me! There were several Little Egrets out on the Marsh and a few Whoopers but no Bewick's Swans.
Anyway, it was back to Rishton Reservoir and home in the vain hope that the geese might reappear. I'd been down to the reservoir and just got back to my car when I heard a flock of Canada Geese. AS hundred or so in a few flocks passed over the road and then... some whitefronts! Whoooo! I pegged it down to the reservoir bank again and eventually the two Greenland and six European Whitefronts came out onto the field - marvellous. To have Whitefronts in East Lancashire is very unusual but for them to remain is unprecedented. And now there's a Brent Goose in the unlikely location of the Hodder Valley. Unfortunately no time to get there today!
At least we're also getting some larger gulls roosting on the reservoir now. 72 Greater Black-backs on 31 Dec and still several today. Only a matter of time until an Iceland Gull drops in!
Back home, there have been up to 16 Lesser Redpolls on the feeders as well as at least five Bullfinches. Not a bad start to the year but work and taxi-service to Manchester & Preston over the next few days will keep me busy.
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