Making a spectacle of yourself

Living in West Lancashire you can get used to wildlife spectacles! Whether it's the Whooper Swans and Pink-footed Geese during the winter at Martin Mere, the Marshside Black-tailed Godwits or the Banks Wigeon it's all great to see and I feel lucky to be able to experience it all so easily. One of the possibly overlooked spectacles on the Ribble estuary is the huge assemblages of shorebirds on the beach between Birkdale and Ainsdale during the summer months. This is a superb section of the Lancashire coastline. Yesterday Frank Whitney and I walked south down the beach from Weld Road car park and enjoyed a wonderful shorebird spectacle - the best the Ribble estuary can offer. 14,000 birds swirling around in huge cloulds and landing on the wet sand and scurrying off and probing to find food certainly is a spectacle worth making the effort to see. I recommend it. Do it while it's warm and the birds are still in there breeding finery.You won't regret it. Frank and I reckoned the most numerous waders were Dunlin (c.7000), then followed by Knot (c.3000), Sanderling (c.1500), Ringed Plover (c.1000) with 100's each of Oystercatcher, Bar-tailed Godwit and Grey Plover. Other birds noted included c.230 Sandwich Terns, 9 Common Terns, c.10 Gannets, adult Peregrine, female Kestrel, 48 Swifts (heading south) and a juv Wheatear (my first on the coast of the ornithological autumn). Two Grey Seals bobbing about offshore are always a pleasure to see and topped off a smashing beach walk.

Dunlin and Sanderling, Birkdale sands, 04/08/12

Red Knot and Dunlin, Birkdale sands, 04/08/12



Dunlin coming into land. Birkdale sands, 04/08/12