Seaforth Nr,

Definitely one of my favourite birds black redstart and this male was an absolute stunner in the sunshine today.

Seaforth NR.
Very wet all day today but this 5th Lancashire record of Little bunting brightened up the day. Dipped on this yesterday . A great find by Tony C.

Burton Marsh,

After the IMF visit I walked along the track towards the firing range and it was very productive. A couple of juvenile hobbies , a ringtail hen harrier, peregrine, buzzard and kestrel all showed very well and whinchats , stonechats and wheatears sat on any available post or thistle. 20 little egrets were dotted about on the salt marsh. An excellent day in the warm autumnal sunshine.

Dowitcher double act put on a show.
A visit to Inner marsh farm RSPB reserve today. The two juvenile long billed dowitchers showed very well in the October sunshine with a curlew sandpiper , a couple of greenshank and a trio of ruff as a supporting cast.

Prescot reservoirs

Adult ring billed gull still

Peacocks and chiffchaffs,

An exhausted chiffchaff was rescued by my wife in a peacocks shop today. As members of staff ignored the poor little bird flying against the window she calmly picked it up and put it in a small cardboard box not wanting to release it in a huge car park. She arrived home saying she had a surprise for me. I wasn't expecting a warbler. I put it in a small cage for a couple of minutes to check it was ok and then released it into the garden were it started feeding straight away .It really was almost wieghtless when I had it in my hand for a couple of seconds but a pleasure to see one so close.

Vis Mig at Prescot reservoirs,

There was a lot of birds moving through today with Meadow pipits and skylarks being the most numerous. With the help of Chris Derrie's excellent hearing we notched up 180 meadow pipits, 38 skylarks ,19 chaffinch, 100 + swallows, 150 house martins, 10 mistle thrushes, 30 pied wagtails and a couple of grey wagtails .This was just a couple of hours watching.

The 4 Little egrets that moved through east to west mid morning were an excellent record for the reservoirs doubling St Helens total number of little egrets in one go.

Also 6 song thrushes were on site with a single wheatear, 5 snipe, 3 mute swans, 4 blackcaps munching elderberries, 4 buzzards, kestrel and peregrine on a pylon.

A green sandpiper was on the wastewater balancing tank. This bird has been a regular visitor this autumn.

The red-breasted goose was with 78 barnacles that no doubt will end up at martin mere sometime during the winter.

Yesterdays adult ring-billed gull appeared mid morning to join 2 adult yellow legged gull, 105 lesser black backs, 20 herring gull, 60 common gull and 80 black headed gulls.

A text from Steve W with news of a long billed dowitcher at imf could not tempt me away today. Andy S and Pete K totally gripped me off with replies to my text to say that the Sandhill crane was showing well !!!

Prescot reservoirs.

Found this adult ring billed gull today on no4 res. Adult yellow legged gull and adult med gull also

Crosby coastguards,
With the recent easterlies and a south easterly today I thought I would try my luck on the Merseyside coast. Seaforth had 4/5 chiffchaffs but not much else on the migrant front so I moved on up the coast to Coastguards. There is a clump of sycamores that always looks like it could have a decent migrant or two in the right conditions. Today a tree pipit , a few chiffchaffs, 2 whitethroats were decent birds .
Best bird though was a Hippo warbler that gave brief but good views . It was not enough to clinch which spiecies it was. Initial views said hippo instantly but it was not the bright yellow/green spring type bird but a rather plain brownish colour on the upper parts and just off whiteish underparts . A prominent pale eyering on a very plain face with no obvious supercillium . The wings were plain with no wing bars or no obvious pale panel as in icky. I probably watched it well for about 10 seconds before it flew to another sycamore and never saw it again despite searching for another hour.


I must admit I was not sure about this bird in the field but when I got home and looked in 'Collins' ,1st winter melodious warbler was a perfect match to the bird I had been watching. No photos, single observer and brief views, this will probably be one that got away.....


20 pinkfeet over the golf course reminded me that winter was not far away.

Garden insects.

Melascaeava cinctella

dusky thorn

Parent bug, Elasmucha grisea . This small shield bug (about 8mm) is so named because the female sits on her eggs and young nymphs to protect them from parasites.

Episyrphus balteatus

Flesh fly

Some spiders in the garden today

money spider

garden spider

The harvest 'spider' is not actually a true spider and belongs to a completely different family.They only have 2 eyes which are usually on stalks and cannot grow a leg back if it looses one or two as spiders can.

New brighton. Big NW blow produces some star birds.

To busy to get down for Fridays haul of sea birds which included sooty shear and balearic shear and all 4 squas but a juv sabines gull on the beach at Meols and 2 great and several artic squa were good birds today along with manx shearwater, common scoter, a couple of red throated diver, gannets and fulmars. There were Leachs petrels on show today but very distant from our position and where just black dots in the swell. Best bird of the day was seen by 2 lucky observers on the seaforth side. A wilsons storm petrel close to the sea wall but unfortunately it was just to far away to be seen from the new brighton side in the choppy Mersey mouth. A first for Lancashire.

A couple of pics of a juv cuckoo at Prescot res and a sand martin colony in St Helens during the summer.

Gait barrows, Lancashire

2 Northern brown argus
1 high brown fritillary
3 dark green fritillary
10 painted lady (freshly emerged)
6 small tortioseshell
8 large white
5 small white
7 peacock
2 comma
1 holly blue
1 possible purple hairstreak

50 Pyrausta cingulata 2nd gen
20 Pyrausta purpuralis 2nd gen

southern hawker
migrant hawker
brown hawker
common darter

high brown fritillary

dark green fritillary

Northern brown argus ; Only 5 -10% show a white discoidal spot in populations in northern England. More usually a black spot or a black spot with a faint white ring around it.

Northern brown argus

Painted lady

southern hawker

Common darter

Some fauna and flora of The forest of Bowland Lancashire,

1 Merlin
7 red grouse
2 little owls

10 large heath
1 drinker
20 catoptria margaritella
100 agriphila straminella
100 + small white butterfly

1 golden ringed dragonfly
6 large red damselfly


Large heath butterfly 'polydama' form
A young little owl

red grouse

A female drinker moth

sundew

Moths and butterflies of Formby Point.



This small grass moth was find of the day . It is Crambus pratella and it is the first confirmed record of this moth in Lancashire.

Painted lady larvae were found at several places amongst the dunes which is what you would expect after the invasion in the spring. This larva was feeding on comfrey whilst others were on spear thistle.

My first gatekeeper of the year

This leaf mine was on horse chestnut. You can see 2 mines which have the larva of Cameraria ohridella, the horse chestnut leaf miner. It is only a recent colonist to the UK which is rapidly spreading north from where it was first found in Wimbledon in 2002

Feeding signs of Mompha sturnipennella on rosebay willowherb

adult Cinnabar moth. Thousands of black and orange larva were feeding on ragwort.

Six spot burnet