Reality League Birding Summer 2001

SCORES UP TO THE END OF MAY

The three months since our last report has produced some excellent birds, with the pick of them being the Tawny Pipit at Heysham, Iceland Gull also at Heysham, Glaucous Gull on the River Lune adjacent to the tip and Pomarine Skuas, including two staying around for two hours at Jenny Browns Point and providing excellent views. Most reality leaguers and many others were able to contact most of the above, but I managed to miss the Poms. As well as points some of these birds also provided life ticks, including Tawny Pipit for Jon Carter, Glaucous Gull for Andrew McCafferty and Pomarine Skua for Howard Elliot.

Pete Marsh remains at the top of the league, thanks to a great number of finds, including the first three mentioned above. He still needs however, Dipper, Manx Shearwater, Hawfinch, Yellowhammer, Kingfisher, Pied Fly, and Pomarine Skua, with 200 species definitely being on the cards again this year.

Most people have managed to contact a good number of available species, even allowing for foot and mouth restrictions. The only species unavailable due to lack of access being Dotterel. It did mean however that some of the seawatching venues were more crowded than usual at times. In relation to the reality league, coverage of both Heysham and Jenny Browns Point has been good, thanks to the time put in by Pete Marsh, Pete Fletcher, John Reddish and others, with the number of species recorded and points scored reflecting this.

The birds however did not always 'play the game', with a flyover Common Crane at Aldcliffe being counted only by Jon Carter, and seen by only one other birder and the Heysham Puffin was only available to Pete Marsh and Pete Fletcher.   The White Stork eluded everyone, if only at least one of us had looked up instead of at the road ahead!

With regard to the web site I will continue to update it on a regular basis. But I do need information to be passed on to me to make it possible. If you see something interesting, not necessarily rare, let me know, please don't assume that somebody else will. I would much rather have duplicated reports than none at all. This is particularly crucial with the rarer species which need to be reported firstly to one of the information services as soon as possible. The web site address is www.realityleague.freeserve.co.uk or can be accessed from the district web site. Information can be sent to me via the link on the site, to my e-mail address:

john@whalleyroad.screaming.net      or telephone  01524/39556

Thanks     John Mason.