16 March 2012

I can never work out my place of work, I'm suppose to be on the late shift (3pm til midnight) but today they said "we haven't got enough trailers coming in today, so if your interested in having a day off then enjoy", no problem an hopefully I don't have to come in and do the overtime on Saturday then?, "Oh yes your still needed for that", right!! So out the door I go and by 16.00 I'm having a pleasant stroll around Westport with the dog Misty, for those that haven't come across Misty yet, she's very friendly except too other dogs! and loves to cut down trees so she can chew the trunk up.

And so on to Westport, it was a pleasant 10c although it felt a bit warmer with the sun shining through the thin wispy cloud cover, the breeze was quite strong SSW, visit from 16.00 til 18.00, it was perfect conditions for picking up a migrant or two and as Nick had seen three Sand Martins and a Chiffchaff early morning, I was hopeful of something similar, or even better a nice early Swallow as one had been seen on the Void, Silverdale yesterday.
The first thing I noticed was a lack of Mute Swans on the boating lake and thought the 19/20 that had been around for the last week had moved on, too my surprise they were nearly all on the main lake with just a few on the boating lake, one had a blue ring (7FTE) which was last seen at Westport in early January, also on the end of the boating ramp of the main lake a Black-headed Gull with a darvic ring, I couldn't quite make out all the numbers/letters except the 1st was a J and the last a 7, after consulting Nick he thought it could be JNJ7 which has been seen at Westport before, I'll send the details in and see what comes back. A Buzzard circled high over and a Grey Heron flew low over the main lake, on the main lake, 25 Tufted Duck, Great Crested Grebes have increased to six all paired up in different parts of the main lake.

Goldeneye remain at two pairs and surely will be departing soon, the males are still displaying to the females and chasing each other off when they get too close to one another, as promised Mr Pete Lunt I have added your photo's of the Goldeneye below, apologies for the delay in adding them.

In the reserve a single Siskin flew over calling, near the top pool a single Coal Tit on the new green box feeders made by the Westport Volunteers Group (I think that's what their called), anyway great feeders, but not so sure about the locations, if your reading this then a good idea would be to have a feeding station near the visitors centre for next winter, anyway coming back to the birds, a pair of Bullfinches were nearby and a pair of Long-tailed Tits were nest building, by the bridge at the top pool a single female Chaffinch and my first male Reed Bunting of the year was shortly followed by my second Westport year tick in a singing Chiffchaff along the Hawthorn at the back of the top pool, the old gas works were very quiet and the only birds of note on the old sewage works were two Collared Doves, lastly four Mistle Thrushes were along the canal side of the main lake.