Hodbarrow wildlife - Can you help?

Hello all,

On monday we had a very productive meeting at Hodbarrow. Most meetings don't normally generate too much excitiment for me but this one was different! Everyone there was full of enthusiasm and passion not only for wildlife but Hodbarrow too. We met to discuss wildlife recording at Hodbarrow from insects to birds and it was a really productive hour or so. We heard from Dave Blackledge Cumbria Coast Reserves about how recording wildlife data at Hodbarrow directly feeds into management decisions for the site. We also discussed how best to record and feedback the data. A highlight must have been Chris (Dragonfly and insect recorder) showing us her picture highlights from the summer which included a canabalistic dragonfly....it was great! Anyway why am I telling you this? Well, we are a small and exclusive bunch at the moment but we are looking to grow!  

If you have any particularly interests in flowers, insects or natterjack toads and would like to help us to record them particularly during the spring and summer then get in contact mhairi.maclauchlan@rspb.org.uk / 01229719655. It might be something you do anyway for your own interest but would like to help us at the same time or you might be interested but need a little bit of training. Any data that we collect is extremely useful in helping us to manage Hodbarrow effectively.  So if you give your time you can be happy in the knowledge that you are positively contributing to Hodbarrow and its future management.

Birds

Fieldfare and redwing continue to show throughout the site. Waxwings were reported on saturday. When I was down today it was a bit of a wildfowl wowza (sorry about the pun) with green-winged teal, female Scaup and a lovely drake Goldeneye taking centre stage with large numbers of Teal, Mallard and Red Breasted Mergansers supporting acts . Waders started to drop in to the lagoon approaching high tide and we had Turnstone, Lapwing, Redshank, Dunlin and Snipe. I haven't seen Eider on the lagoon for a few months now and it was nice to see a single one on the island. I have to add that looking over the sea wall towards Haverigg there were large numbers or Dunlin, Redshank, Curlew, Lapwing on the mud there.

Cheers

Mhairi