27 Oct 22

Priorslee Lake and The Flash

15.0°C > 16.0°C: Very mild again. Cloud beginning to break after earlier rain. Moderate / fresh southerly breeze. Good visibility.

[Sunrise: 07:57 BST]

* = a photo from today.

A much later visit than usual to avoid the rain and the low light levels of the morning.

Priorslee Lake: 14:30 – 14:55

(233rd visit of the year)

A feedback from yesterday: the first of the two planthoppers has been re-identified by the Shropshire Bug Recorder as Eupteryx urticae and not E. florida as I had thought. The second is confirmed as Ribautiana tenerrima. Thanks to Keith.

Only viewing from the dam-top this afternoon. Nothing of note and indeed fewer of many species. The gull count was an 'instant' count with a few coming and going throughout my rather short visit.

Birds noted flying over here:
- c.35 Starlings flew SW

Counts from the lake area:
- 57 Canada Geese
- 2 + 4 (1 brood) Mute Swans
- no Gadwall
- 4 (3♂) Mallard
- no Tufted Duck
- 7 Moorhens
- 226 Coots
- 12 Great Crested Grebes again
- 48 Black-headed Gulls: see notes
- 6 Herring Gulls
- 19 Lesser Black-backed Gulls

(Ed Wilson)

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The Flash: 13:20 – 14:25

(226th visit of the year)

Bird notes:
- So where have the three strange geese come from? As far as I could see they were unringed.
- Three of the brownhead Goosanders were seen sitting just inside the island. There were possibly more.

Birds noted flying over here:
- 2 Herring Gulls

Noted on / around the water
- 17 Canada Geese
- >23 Greylag Geese: more inside the island
- 3 mainly white feral geese
- 2 + 4 (1 brood) Mute Swans
- 42 (27♂) Mallard
- 1 (1♂) all-white duck (Peking(?) Duck)
- 17 (11♂) Tufted Duck
- 42 (3♂) Goosander: at least, see notes
- 11 Moorhens
- 24 Coots
- 2 Great Crested Grebes
- 18 Black-headed Gulls
- 7 Cormorants
- 2 Grey Herons again

Noted on / around the street lamp poles:
- 1 November Moth agg. (Epirrita dilutata agg.)

Noted later around the Ivy bank:
- Common Wasp (Paravespula vulgaris)
- Marmalade Hoverfly (Episyrphus balteatus)
- Common Drone Fly (Eristalis tenax).

So where have these three mostly white and presumable feral geese come from. They were all on the island and happy to be with the Greylag Geese as evidenced by the two on the right. None of these three seems to be ringed as they might be if they were from a wildfowl collection.

The bird on the left is very similar to a genuine wild white form of Snow Goose: perhaps the bill is a bit too large. Although a few genuine Snow Geese records are noted every year, these are mostly associated with other wild migrant geese and not 'resident' birds, like these Greylag Geese. That said over the years I have recorded at least three species of wild goose spending a few days hanging out with our residents.

This one looks a bit more like a hybrid escapee, the bill being rather too large and too red for any wild goose and the grey in the plumage would only match a first-year bird which should have a dark bill.

And the third bird looking more like a white Swan Goose but again the bill is too large and too red.

A duck Mallard spreads her wings showing the white-bordered blue area in each wing. This area present in most dabbling ducks (and hence not in Tufted Ducks which are diving ducks) is known as the speculum.

This shows how pale the underwing is.

This Marmalade Hoverfly (Episyrphus balteatus) was on the bank of Ivy near the academy.

Plane of the day: this is a Boeing 787 900 series Dreamliner of All Nippon Airways coming to the end of a 13 hour haul from Tokyo's Haneda Airport to Heathrow. This and the similar Japan Airlines flight are recent additions to the local airspace as they now take a Polar route whilst boycotting Russian airspace following the Ukraine invasion. This is not associated with any threat from the war itself: the sanctions against Russia include not making the internationally agreed payments which would arise from using its controlled airspace.

This usual Flight Radar 24 data for the flight.

(Ed Wilson)

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On this day can be found via the yearly links in the right-hand column.

Sightings from previous years without links are below

2011

Priorslee Lake

1 Adult Great Black-backed Gull

1000+ large gulls

(John Isherwood)

2010

Priorslee Lake

Great Black-backed Gull

11 Golden Plover

2 Kingfishers

16 Reed Buntings

5 Sky Larks

8 Meadow Pipits

71 Redwings

457 Fieldfare

31 Siskins

1 Linnet

4 Redpolls

(Ed Wilson)

2005

Priorslee Lake

40 Tufted Duck

16 Pochard

2 Ruddy Duck

Common Buzzard

Sparrowhawk

c.2500 Lesser Black-backed Gulls

1 Kingfisher

2 Goldcrest

42 Fieldfare

Willow Tit

14 Long-tailed Tits

(Martin Adlam)