The Beast of Newton Marsh?

I'll try and keep this succinct.

My prayers have been answered, it's stopped raining, the sun even shone (one day) and I have some images to archive and something to post.

Many of you hopefully have seen Martin's blog about Great Black-Backed Gull attacking a male wigeon about two weeks ago  (see here) ... well Newton Marsh is also on 'my patch'... hours of fun sat doing nowt (meditation and putting the world to rights... only thing that has kept me sane... well maybe not).

There have been a few (couple of hundred) Wigeon about for a few months but numbers appear to have increased recently (or more have come into view) and there have been upwards of 1500+ at times. The place is chaos! Especially when you throw in a demonic Great Black-Backed Gull, which does appear to be venomous in it's disruption of the Wigeon. (double click image for enlarged slide show)

spot the shoveler in with the wigeon

the culprit – the beast of Newton Marsh!

wigeon in flight

chaos!

too often, we overlook the beauty of what's in front of us - female mallard

male wigeon

male wigeon

flying wigeon

Anyway, here a selection of images in an attempt to capture what's going on... I fear I may have more to follow, so expect more than one post on the subject.

And if you are wondering about the map... I have an interest in history and this flood map of the Fylde from the Environment Agency seemed to suggest and reminded me of what the area may have looked like perhaps around the time of the Conqueror (1066) when much of it was all mine before man intervened and drained so much of it ... only trouble is, this is what it might look like soon – I hope you aren't the ones under water. Now switch off everything you're not using and save the planet!

you may wish to visit
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/floods/31650.aspx