Backdated post with sightings from Ainsdale in June 2014.

Ainsdale beach June 2, 2014
Wrens on the way down.
Giant carp
Blue damselflies
Tiny damselflies
Big dragonflies
Bee orchid
Grey pipit-like bird speckled chest no obvious wing or tail markings in flight - rock pipit?
More orchids
Reed bunting
White throat
Something greyer - tree sparrow?-
Sedge warbler.
Wheatear
Terns
Things diving from great height

Rather unedifying notes here, other than a reminder that Sands Lake was home to some rather large ornamental carp at the time. The terns might have been Common or Sandwich, but the divey things were Gannet and I’m having those. Unidentifiable grey things were as likely to be fledgling Starlings as anything I was guessing at.

Ainsdale Dunes June 11, 2014
Flower at 4:24 pm is up on fore dune ish
Sanderling or stint 2

  • Black legs
  • I thought I saw back toe
  • Stripe on wings when flushed
  • No eye stripe
  • Sad little peeps
  • Browny scaly back
  • No shape to waterline
  • Medium beak not curved
    Brown and speckldy makes scratchy alarm call fine white collar almost chaffinch wing bar
    Willow warblers
    Reed bunting
    Plenty of white throat including a family
    Tits
    Does a juv sedge just look like a reed? And who is cawing like a crow?

A bit of a mystery show here! I had another attempt to convince myself that a lone Sanderling was a Little Stint, but I wouldn’t believe it now. ‘Fine white collar’ is surely a Stonechat. And was I looking at fledgeling Sedge Warblers? Probably.