Natural Selection

Little Singleton isn’t a place to go at high tide unless the tide is high. By that I mean a normal high tide removes the exposed river banks and offers no compensating benefits. A spring tide is a completely different matter, as birds are funnelled up from downriver and others that are normally out of…

The Fylde Bird Club newsletter came out yesterday. This prompted a few thoughts on my part. This included how far the standard of local bird club newsletters has come on, with advances in photography and desktop publishing. It also struck me that it’s a bit sad that finder’s accounts of rarities are somewhat old hat…

This is my half century of entries on this blog. I haven’t missed a day, WordPress like Ebird call this a streak. I am not sure the pressure to maintain these ‘streaks’ is conducive to good mental health, but I will be on Foula in the spring without laptop internet access so I know radio…

Tonight’s Lancaster and District Birdwatching Society online meeting was a real treat for over 60 members as they heard club president John Wilson reflect on over 75 years personal experience of birding the area. Like most young boys of his era John got involved in egg collecting to a degree. He was something of an…

Unlike the preening Canada Geese pictured above I wasn’t able to turn a blind eye to the hordes of people walking round Chorlton Water Park today. That isn’t to say that it was unpleasant, but it’s always a bit galling to see dogs chasing swans into the water whilst their owners often find it all…

After dropping Jane at the hairdressers I stayed fairly close by to be able to pick her up when she was done. So gulls were the order of the day – at Stanley Park and Skippool. I was hoping for some foreign ringing recoveries in the park, but both the birds I saw were from…

I was asked to run a Big Garden Birdwatch event at the community hub on our Grange Park Estate today. There is always a danger with these events that nobody comes, or people come and the birds don’t show up. As it was we did fine on both counts, there was a healthy turnout and…

Following the heavy losses of Mute Swans at Stanley Park over the last few weeks the lake finally reopened today with no cases for some time. Brambles Wildlife Sanctuary who have been dealing with the sad avian flu losses asked me to do a waterbird count, as I have been doing the Wetland Bird Survey…

I had work business on our Mereside estate today so did my lunchtime birding at the waste transfer station. Almost instantly I got on a colour ringed Herring Gull. Whilst it was moving its legs in and out of view it was clearly N:37B. I’ve submitted the bird to the ringing scheme involved, but they…

I don’t know as much of the history of late at Ream Hills as I should. It’s on the outskirts of Blackpool, just about visible from the eastbound M55, and I first became aware of it when it was a field sports venue along with the neighbouring woods. As you may have deduced from the…