Sandside shelducks

Two shelducks are sieving the water and mud for tiny snails on the estuary at Sandside. A single redshank is in the water beyond them. The sun is about to set.

One day when I am no longer yoked to a desk, I would like to spend some time working out where the shelducks are breeding, how many actually do nest, and what their success is. You would think that pairs would have built a nest by now and would not be feeding together on the estuary, but most of them there this evening were in pairs.

They are hole nesting birds, but how many actually find a suitable rabbit burrow or other hole within a reasonable distance to be able to walk the chicks down to the water? Some years ago when we were rock climbing in Trowbarrow quarry, my attention was drawn to a commotion amongst the boulders below the famous Jean Jeanie route on the main wall. It was a shelduck just leaving its nest. Yet from there, there would be a walk of a couple of miles to Morecambe Bay, through woodlands, fields, and saltmarsh, on the way crossing roads and railway lines. Did they have any chance of making it?

Another time, I was just about to leave for work, and I had a phone call from Wifie. She was on the road past Carr Bank, and there was a party of about 9 young shelducks trapped on the road between a stone wall and a rock face. The adults who had been shepherding them down to the estuary had panicked and taken to the air flying up and down above. Some impatient motorists had ploughed through them, killing two. By the time I got there, someone else had arrived with a collapsible basket, and had managed to scoop them up and get them over the seaward side of the wall. I watched the survivors as they made their way up the sea wall, through the facing boulders and down to the marsh, by now reunited with their parents. But I never saw them again, I've no idea if they survived. Did the parents take them further out into the Bay? Did they join up with other families to form a creche?

So many questions to answer. I was reflecting on this today having gone to a retirement do for a colleague. I was seriously envious of the opportunity of time.