A Taste of all Seasons ... Great flocks of Pinkfeet and Golden Plovers ... singing Song Thrush and Dunnock ...

With wall to wall sunshine on the Solway yesterday and with no more than a hint of a breeze it felt positively spring-like ... the big flocks of wintering birds told a different story ... it was good to see around a thousand Golden Plovers inhabiting the wet mudflats on the bend of the River Wampool at Anthorn which has recently been much less of a magnet for birds than it was just a few years ago ...

... never completely settled, they lifted nervously from time to time before returning to the same spot ...

'Golden' seemed a very appropriate epithet as the early afternoon sunshine caught them side-on ...

At Siddick Pond a Song Thrush was singing a slightly strange but powerful and rather halting song that had me pause for a moment and certainly attracted the attention of local dog walkers who wanted to know what bird that was ...

... the song was rather a 'work in progress' typical of this early stage of spring and what The Sound Approach dubbed 'plastic song' as they explored the development of song and brought greater understanding to the process that Nicholson and Koch had discussed in 1936 when  the term 'subsong ' was first used ( The Sound Approach to Birding; Mark Constantine & The Sound Approach 2006 ).

On the main pond a family party of five Whooper Swans fed in among a dozen or so Mute Swans and a group of Goosanders dived repeatedly in a display of co-ordinated fishing ...

The sea at Workington was glassy and unremarkable save for a steady stream of Cormorants coming in from an unusually south westerly direction rather than simply flying north along the coast as they normally do ... were they perhaps returning from the Scottish side ?

By the outfall pipe the regular wintering Mediterranean Gull roosted along with a few Black-headed Gulls, some adults and some first-winter birds in varying degrees of advancement ...

With the tide well out at Allonby Bay, some gulls loafed along the distant shore ... Black-headed, Common and Herring in the main ... and a group of Oystercatchers preened ...

... the two birds on the left were in full summer plumage while the others were second calendar-year birds showing white 'cut throats' and bills of muted colour with darker tips ...

... way out on the sea several flocks of around fifty Wigeon floated languidly ...

Pinkfeet were on the move in the Wedholme Flow area ... always managing to settle in distant and inaccessible rushy fields ...

The Anthorn masts field was host to another three thousand or so Golden Plovers along with a scattering of Lapwings, Starlings and tucked away among a straggly patch of rushes a party of four Ruff picked constantly among the vegetation ...

... raising their heads only occasionally ...

A bank of black cloud loomed out to the west blotting out the sinking sun and casting sudden gloom over the Campfield Scrape where a very fluffed-up Little Egret walked towards the water's edge ...

... and flew over the pool where some Teal lingered and a party of Snipe probed among the emergent sedges ...

Grune Point ... Twite, Merlin, Pintail and Red-breasted Mergansers ...

Grune Point at its best can be a rich mix of nice species in an exciting setting ... at its worst it is an unrewarding slog ... yesterday was much closer to the former scenario ...

Walking the track on the south side ... and suddenly some movement among the scattered stones ahead ... a flock of around ninety Twite fed among the stones then moved closer to the edge of a pool ...

... so often this species is way out on Skinburness Marsh ... but flighty as always, today they were giving unusually close views ...

... then off again and landing in a very wet area next to the channel ...

... as the tide came in a growing number of Red-breasted Mergansers mustered near the entrance to the channel where the water formed a choppy surface as the water flows competed ... their crests blown into bizarre shapes by the wind ...

... as number grew to a total of twenty-two some lovely displaying started ...

A female Merlin was perched on the ground well out on the marsh ... it took off, disappearing into a channel before reappearing to find another vantage point ...

Very distantly out in Moricambe Bay some ninety Pintail formed a raft as wind and waves cut up the surface even more ...

Wigeon were dotted around in groups, some out in the bay and some on the grassy shore mingling with Curlew ...

By the Anthorn Masts several thousand Golden Plover stood in the grassland, first in one place then inexplicably moving to another ... some Lapwings and Dunlin ( performing their role as 'Plover's Page' ) in attendance ...

As the light faded in the bay to the east of Port Carlisle two Little Stints were among the gathering wader flocks that came in on the falling tide ... sometimes in among the other waders ...

... and sometimes wandering into open areas ...

Recent birds locally ... Brambling, Goosander, more Black Grouse ... Geltsdale in the snow ...

Brambling numbers have been low this winter so this adult male in my garden was a welcome visitor ...

... a ringed bird, perhaps one of the birds ringed recently at Stagsike, Geltsdale ...

Some of the birds at Talkin Tarn when I did my WeBS visit this week were a little more confiding than usual ... maybe the absence of dogs jumping in the water was a help ...

... male Goosander is always a delight to see ...

... and four Little Grebes were a record count for the site ...

... the overnight snow was keeping the road to Clesketts on the way to Geltsdale quiet - still no vehicle tracks by 09.00 and few footprints ...

... a female Goosander flew in, in front of the screen ...

... and more distantly a female Pochard was the only one of its species in view ... normally outnumbered by males at this site ...

... and the tarn looked attractive looking from the screen, across the reedbed to the Rigg ...

... as I walked up through Bruthwaite a Woodcock rose from a small patch of unfrozen boggy ground and lazily winged its way through the trees ... a little higher up a Snipe got up noisily and dashed off ... and six female Black Grouse appeared among the alders and wheeled round ... the tarn looked bleak as the mist rolled in ...

News this week of the colour ringed Greenshank I had at Glasson Point on 29th November 2017 ...

... it was ringed on the Ythan Estuary a year previously ...

Duncan writes -

Ends.

... and we feel lucky to have wintering Greenshank on the Solway !

Beautiful Geltsdale (3) ... and beyond ... Black Grouse and Rough-legged Buzzard ...

Venturing east over the Cumbria / Northumberland border to Plenmeller Common where a Rough-legged Buzzard had been reported the previous day ... it gave distant and intermittent views as the hill fog persisted doggedly ... but a fine male Black Grouse rose from the hillside and very obligingly arced round to give great fly-by views ...

... and a flock of around 400 Golden Plovers circled over this high ground ...

... the Rough-leg took me back to the afternoon of 13th February 2012 when I came across one in almost exactly the same area ... this had been  the first accepted record for Northumberland in five years but its stay was brief ...

... the Northumbrian raptor enthusiast and artist Mike Henry produced an evocative watercolour of the bird in that setting and thanks to Pete Howard it now hangs on my wall ...

On a colder but brighter day at Geltsdale the ice on Tindale Tarn had again created interesting effects with the ice remaining suspended in response to falling water levels ...

... and the brisk easterly breeze caused the Teal to take shelter at the east end ...

... while a male Goosander braved the choppy water regardless ...

... and by the screen a party of Long-tailed Tits fed energetically on the alders and phragmites seed-heads ... they always seem out of place in this wild landscape but are regular along the Howgill Beck although probably at their altitudinal limit at around 220 - 240 m asl ...

... two skeins of Pink-footed Geese flew over in quick succession as they headed west toward the Solway ...

... creating wonderful patterns in the sky as they moved across the wide expanse of the northern vista as I stood near White Tortie watching them and listening to their calls as they drifted away ...