News archive

Sunday, 20 August 2006

Field Trip to Formby

On Sunday 20th August thirteen members met in the partially flooded Lifeboat Road car park at Formby for a walk along the beach at Formby Point. The heavy showers of the night before had cleared up to leave a dull, but dry and cool morning.

As we made our way though the dunes to the beach we were met with a very strong on-shore breeze and weather that reminded us more of winter than summer. We almost had the beach to ourselves apart from a few hardy dog walkers. On the high tide shoreline sanderling darted in and out of the water like clockwork toys. In the distance to our south we could make out rafts of birds gathered on a sand spit at the edge of the sea. As we approached the large flock rose into the air to create a swirling mass, moving from side to side in unity and finally settling down again on the same spot, after the threat from the prowling dogs had ceased. Among the flock were bar-tailed godwit, grey plover, oystercatcher, dunlin, sanderling, curlew and terns including common, Arctic, little and Sandwich. Many of the birds were still in summer plumage and the bar-tailed godwits had retained their russety coloured breasts. On the beach we also had sightings of wheatear and sand martin. We returned to the car park through the dunes where we saw some late summer swifts and swallows wheeling through the air hunting for insects.

After lunch we walked towards the National Trust reserve at Freshfield where we passed a couple of lakes - one was completely dry and the other had a little water. There were no sightings of natterjack toad as they had dispersed throughout the reserve after breeding but several mallards in eclipse summer plumage were being fed some dry bread. In the woodland area we caught up with several red squirrels being fed peanuts by the many visiting children. The peanuts also attracted a variety of woodland birds including chaffinch, various tit species, wood pigeon, collared dove and robin. In the tops of the pine trees were seen treecreeper, long-tailed tits, goldfinch and goldcrest.

As we returned along the beach, now at low tide and with the wind behind us, the shore line was dotted with a variety of gulls including, black-headed, herring and lesser black-backed. Now that the trip was nearing the end the sun appeared and things looked decidly better. In all 37 species of birds were recorded for the day. John Drake.