Twites

LBJs* or charismatic passerines? Twites lined up along the edge of the slipway of the Fleetwood Ferry at Knottend in Lancashire.

After I'd had a needlework session in the morning, Dr T and I headed south to Knottend-on-Sea to catch up with the flock of twites that have spent part of their Winter feeding on the strand line next to the ferry ramp. 

Somehow we missed them when we first arrived, and spent an hour wandering along the banks of the Wyre and then the edge of the Bay. We came back to have a final peep over the sea wall before retreating from the blasting cold wind to the cafe. And there they were in a tight flock of 30 to 40 birds, finding seeds amongst the stranded detritus that gathers in the corner between the sea wall and the ramp of the slipway. While they needed a close look for visual identification, their thin, nasal contact calls were instantly identifiable from memories of visits to the Outer Hebrides in the breeding season.

Though at first glance they are small and brown, they are actually quite distinctive. They have yellow bills, streaky flanks, a touch of white on the wings and peachy coloured feathers on their throats. In short, rather lovely birds, but then aren't all birds when you get to know them? Charismatic? Oh yes, because they are small birds that breed and winter in often wild and windy environments, whose winter flocks are bound together by their constant contact calls, and that have declined sharply in their upland breeding habitats, to me at least they are no mere * little brown jobs.

A good dry day out in the cold wind with lots of waders and wildfowl to see as well as the twites. We drove through Preesall where Gus spent part of his life before moving to Arnside to live with us. The twites were my 111th species of the year. There is a close-up of one of them in the Extras.