Ticks and dips

Saturday January 7th was an extra trip so with this as with any others of a special "twitching" I shall be offsetting my carbon on here:- http://www.climatestewards.net/cs-int-en/home.html .   I saw there was a visit to Marton Mere in Blackpool by the Preston Society so I arranged with Jim to go. Unfortunately I mistakenly went for 0900 instead of 1000. The good thing was as we arrived so did the ranger on duty for the day. This meant we did not have to go searching for the long eared owl. As we approached the location we also managed to spot some long tailed tits in the bushes and two snipe which flew over. The RSPB were having a special day looking at the owls so we were able to help them set up some telescopes. Since both Jim and I recently received our badges for 20 years volunteering, we thought it was only right. There were two owls just visible, one with difficulty the other with extreme difficulty. Here is a photo taken a couple of years ago to give you a better view than we had .

We had a look over the Mere and saw teal, wigeon, several gulls, goldeneye, the inevitable coots and mute swans. There was supposed to be Mediterranian gull and Red crested pochard but by this time the sun was giving a very bright reflection from the surface of the water. This meant seeing anything was practically impossible. We decided to go to look for a black redstart reportedly at Knott End. We did see the members of the Preston Society arriving as we left. That is when I realised I had got the time wrong. On arrival at Knott End a quick scan revealed nothing. A hot drink and butties were needed to keep us going. Having consumed these we continued our search. Turnstones were feeding on the ferry slipway and in the distance oystercatchers, knot and curlew were following the tide out. An hours frustration followed. Although I was able to add scentless mayweed to my challenge list, we still did not see either the black redstart nor the twite that had been reported. Later that afternoon we heard that Blackpool had beaten Fleetwood in the FA Cup, altogether a disappointing afternoon on the Fylde

  

Total after today 103