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Mhairi

I took part in the beached bird survey a couple of weeks ago. My section covered Hodbarrow along to Borwick rails. The national beached bird survey takes place every year to monitor the bird mortality rate on our coastline. With 100's of volunteers covering many miles it is huge effort. Fortunately I only found one bird but I'm not sure we're counting stuffed penguins!

http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/projects/details/203916-national-beached-bird-survey

The weather certainly seems to have changed a little bit this week, cold but certainly a spring feel to it. As I write a large skein of pinkfeet are flying over Millom with 400+ individuals starting their journeys.

Having been away for a week I returned yesterday eager to see if there were any sightings on the board and also what wildlife there was to see. I was pleased to see that our wintering Slavonian Grebe had been seen after a little bit of an absence. We have various records and sightings of Salvonian Grebe on and off since August- I'll be sad to see it go! Scanning from the hide I picked the grebe out from under the beacon. The Green-winged teal wasn't visible in the ever dwindling numbers of Teal on the island edge - this doesn't mean that it isn't around though!

We have had a single Eider male for a wee while now but we now have a pair using the lagoon with the promise of others moving as we get into spring. Other wildlfowl including Red-breasted Mergansers, Goldeneyes, Pochard, Tufted Duck, Gadwall were also on the lagoon. I have now had a Great-crested grebe pair moving into the water near the carpark which is where I have seen them displaying last year. We hope to put in place some Grebe platforms as suggested by Christine with some of the off cuts from the work we have been doing on the reserve for grebes to nest on. Last year I laid some of the willows on the edge of the water in order to create nesting areas - we shall see how this works in the coming breeding season.

With all this nice weather smaller passerine have picked up song and I'm sure it won't be long until we get those summer visitors back. If you are on the reserve and get a first for the spring let me know or even better put it onto the forum.

Cheers

Mhairi