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Sunday 10 January 2010

A few hours at St Marys and the cem........


Friday saw me drive to St Mary' s Island , I picked one of the worst days of the week most days had been at Least sunny but today it was dull with a sort of freezing fog hanging around , I went along the beach to try and see the Water pipit for the year, but no sign, I came across this dead fish it was actually quite large , I know nothing of fish but thought is was a John Dory Golden Plover along the shoreline, plenty of Sanderling but the colour ringed birds seemed to have moved on , I know they move to Sandhaven beach at times, lots of Golden Plover feeding in amongst the rocks and also Skylarks dropping in .
Woodccks around with 3-4 flighting around , a Merlin over the screen with prey later I found the remains of a Skylark down on the prom by a seat, and the remains of a Snipe along the track, a small area of open water on the wetland had numerous Teal and a single Pintail male, with Wigeon and Shoveller also 4 of these in a small rock pool, Snipe all over the place but no Woodcock in the open , Song Thrush seem to be finding plenty of snails to eat , I remember the one that used a bottle to break the shells on ,it took me ages to work out what the sound was till I saw it Bashing away on one of those flat Alcohol bottles, by 2 the light was poor and it was bitter cold time to head home.
I thought it was a John Dory but a search on the net shows not ??Thanks to the Boulmer Birder for the I.D. as a Lumpsucker






Plenty of Golden Plover in amongst the rocks and along the shore

4 comments:

Stewart said...

Brian, its a Lumpsucker. It has a disc on its chest for gripping rocks inshore..

Northumbrian Birding said...

Thanks Stewart, I have heard of Lumpsucker but thought they would be small, this was much larger that my boot, you live and learn.
Brian

Stewart said...

They grow to about 2 feet long and 5 lbs! I have seen males in rock pools about a foot long in breeding plumage(!) they are bright pink...They come to the surface of the pools right at the lowest tide mark and blow bubbles...

Northumbrian Birding said...

Cripes, Stewart how the hell do you know all this stuff, I try to learn new things but tend to forget just as quickly, I had to smile at the last bit , but oddly it reminded me of the time I was on Bardsey we climbed down to an underwater cave , where we sat and watched Seals come to the surface and "sing" the most aerie sound ive ever heard.
Brian