UK Diary 11-23 November 2009

Snow Buntings, Pendle Hill

23 November 2009 Lower Standen Farm At last! A long-overdue addition to the cottage list was a Common Buzzard that flew low over the farm, mobbed by crows. Also seen by the seemingly omnipresent John Metcalfe, who was delivering the mail at the time!

22 November 2009 Northwest Birdwatching Festival. Evi and I had an enjoyable afternoon dodging the heavy rain at Martin Mere WWT reserve, catching up with some friends at the bird festival and having a quick look around the pens. The highlight of the afternoon, as always, was feeding time at the Swanlink hide. As three o'clock approached the noise level increased as the Whooper Swans, which build up to around 1600 by mid-winter, gathered in anticipation. When the wheelbarrow of grain finally appeared all hell lets loose as the swans form a scrum along the shore only a couple of metres in front of the hide, together with some brave ducks - mostly Mallard, Northern Pintail and Common Shelducks. Also here was a group of 12 Ruffs amongst the hundreds of Northern Lapwings and at dusk thousands of Common Starlings flew in to roost in the waterfowl pens, a nice end to the day over a hot chocolate.

Top: Northern Lapwing, rest: Whooper Swans

21 November 2009 East Lancashire. ‘It’s grim up north’ is a suitable description of the birding day today. At Parsonage Reservoir a Common Goldeneye was a welcome start to the day, alongside a Great Crested Grebe, 8 Eurasian Coots and several Mallards. En route to Pendle an impressive 292 Northern Lapwings were in a field by the A59 near Pendleton and a Common Kestrel stared into the gloom by the roadside in the hope of a meal. Pendle Hill’s summit was in view early on but almost as soon as I started the walk in from the Barley road low cloud arrived and reduced the visibility to less than 10m by the time I reached it. All I could manage on a walk to the Downham Moor screes and back was a Red Grouse and three Fieldfares, which flew south over the landslide. It had been my intention to do a TTV on the top. Like an idiot I have signed up for one of the bleakest and least attractive tetrads in East Lancs, SD74V, with only two species recorded so far – Fieldfare and Snow Bunting. However, this was obviously out of the question now and trying to salvage something from the day and also to get one of my outstanding early winter TTVs done I headed for SD75S, the tetrad immediately to the south of Tosside. At least it was not quite so misty here but in truly miserable dank weather I scraped together a puny total of 24 species, the highlight, if one can call it that, being a count of 47 Blue Tits, mostly crowded around the many feeders on the Crow Trees caravan park. I don’t think I have ever seen so many. Six House Sparrows was a surprise in a generally sparrow-free area and five Long-tailed Tits, a Common Kestrel and a Great Spotted Woodpecker provided further interest but all in all it was a pretty desperate morning’s birding. I did actually see a very nice selection of waterfowl along the Tosside Beck: Bar-headed Goose (2); Barnacle Goose (2); Mandarin (4); White-cheeked Pintail (2); Ringed Teal (2) and Maned Duck (2), but all were around a garden pond at Melling Dab. A bacon and egg butty at the Riverside Tearooms in Slaidburn was the highlight of the day but as I made my way to Champion Moor, heavy rain stopped play. The deserts of Oman feel like a lifetime ago now.

14 November 2009 Bowland With the weather unsuitable for atlassing a whistle-stop tour of the patch from dawn produced little of note. Stocks Reservoir was again brim full and without any shoreline to speak of if appears to have been deserted by most waterbirds. Only four Eurasian Wigeon and a handful of Mallards remained, riding the waves in the Hodder inlet. Five Western Roe Deer crossed the road in the forest and a couple of Common Kestrels were hunting in the wind over Champion Moor. The fells have also been left to the sheep and grouse and a drive around in the hope of Snow Bunting at Bowland Knotts and Cross of Greet resulted in only three Red Grouse on Clapham Common (not to be confused with the notorious London site of the same name!). After a nice bacon and egg butty at the Riverbank Tearooms in Slaidburn I headed for Pendle Hill via an old friend, the barn Tawny Owl. By now the weather had deteriorated further, the wind had grown stronger, the rain heavier and the visibility had diminished (more evidence that I must be completely insane). Nevertheless in the blasting southerly wind it was not too cold and I pressed on to the summit via the landslide trail, seeing two Common Stonechats on the way up. A tame pair of Red Grouse was again in the summit area, eating grass seeds and allowed approach to around two metres! In a strong wind between south and west the Downham Moor screes on the northwest shoulder of the hill are a good bet and this is where I relocated the five Snow Buntings from a couple of days ago. They were quite active in the wind and difficult to approach but a delight to watch as they scuttled about in the grass above the scree slope, eating the same seeds as the grouse. Wonderful! With a spring in my step the walk back was a breeze.

Top two: Red Grouse (male and female) and bottom: Tawny Owl

11 November 2009 Pendle Hill Out of the airport taxi, grab some lunch and head straight for Pendle, a good 30 degrees celsius cooler than Bahrain! In the fading light of the afternoon I was delighted to catch up with five Snow Buntings near the trig point, however, as soon as I saw them they took flight, towards the north wall and way out of sight. The couple reported earlier in the week had probably been joined by some more, although these five birds could also easily represent a new party as there seem to be plenty on the move in the northwest this week. Also here were 69 European Golden Plovers flying around the summit. A weather front was approaching from the southwest and the sky turning almost as dark as night signalled it was time to leave.