Last week I did my first visit of 2025 to easily my longest standing survey commitment, the Breeding Bird Survey of Blackpool tetrad SD3033. I’ve written about this before, including a couple of years ago as linked below.
https://naturalselectiondotuk.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=1067&action=edit
The previous article mentions that 51 species had been seen on my surveys to 2022, and 2023 and 2024 didn’t add to that tally. This first visit of 2025 did nudge the total up though as a pair of Greylag Geese flew over the Promenade. At some point I must work out what other likely additions might be. These surveys are obviously about the breeding birds, but it’s always nice to see something different.
Other Greylags photographed locally from my photo collection
It won’t be too much longer before feral geese locally (Canadas and Greylags) begin to head to Lake Windermere to moult. Neck collars and leg rings show that birds using Windermere winter in the Fylde and pass through on the way to other sites further south also.
The survey doesn’t involve prolonged seawatching but a number of Sandwich Terns were calling offshore as they moved south. There were also 255 Herring Gulls in total, which is the highest total in the 24 years I’ve been doing this survey.
Herring Gull in St John’s Square, just inland from the Promenade
Natural Selection 
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