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Blackpool’s Rarest Bird?
It can be difficult to know how many birds of a given species are in a given area, it can also be very easy. There used to be several Long-eared Owls wintering in Blackpool at Marton Mere, they aren’t there now but if they moved roost a few hundred metres they might be undetected. Some…
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Book Review – Human, Nature
When I put this book on my nature writing ‘to read’ list I hadn’t realised I had seen versions of some of the content before. The essays in Human, Nature have appeared in British Birds and other publications, or earlier incarnations of the arguments in them have. There are four sections to the book. ‘Close…
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Dipping A Toe Into 2022 Birding
As Bryony and Sabine were both visiting today my first birding of 2022 was low key. I volunteered at Fleetwood parkrun first thing, where the New Years Day dip in the Irish Sea was in full swing. Birdwise the highlight was four Goldeneye on the marine lake behind my marshalling point. Like a lot of…
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The Year In Review
As I meander between classic bird blog territory and other stuff today it’s back to the former. It was a memorable year for me and I’m certainly not complaining. Here’s my top ten chronologically: February half-term With lockdowns and work there wasn’t much chance to get out in earnest before this. Some nice birding Over…
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Blue Is The Colour
Jane and I had a brief amble at Ormsgill Reservoir during my Barrow birthday bash yesterday. The Mute Swans were almost all obligingly lined up along the railway embankment side and I looked through them for the bird from Yorkshire sporting a yellow Darvic ring which has been here for several months. There was no…
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Happy Birthday To Me
I am away for my birthday so I’ve scheduled this, which means it probably won’t work but we’ll see. In terms of birding on my birthday the only thing I can ever remember finding was a Snow Bunting on the shore at Askam-in-Furness when I was a teenager. I didn’t even have my binoculars with…
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Creative Writing – Eyes To The Skies
Yesterday I promised to share some creative writing based on another morning Jane and I spent at Rossall Beach in the spring. You can see it here: https://www.blackpoolsocial.club/32412-coast-bird-migration/ In case that doesn’t work for anyone the text is reproduced below.
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Bad Seawatching
Jane wanted to look for seaglass this morning, so we ‘killed two birds with one stone’ and I did an hour seawatching from Rossall Promenade car park whilst she combed the beach below the tideline. The basic test of successful seawatching is managing to look at the sea. In this regard I was a failure.…
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Grazing Gazing
Between junior parkrun and my parents coming round I only had an hour or so for birding today. I decided to look for Pinkfeet in the Singleton / Windy Harbour area, where I had seen some in passing yesterday. There were perhaps 1500 or so in a field so I parked carefully off road and…
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December 25th
Here is what I’ve received for Christmas from family nature writing wise. I’m putting it on here to make sure that I read them all and do some kind of review in due course. If you’ve been checking in regularly you will know that I received Vagrancy In Birds early, and you can see a…
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Natural Selection 