Summary January 2016
Species this month = 83
New Species added to 2016 Year List in January= 83
Running Total for the 2016 UK So Far = 83
New UK Life List Birds In January= 0
General
The weather in January was a continuation of December but much wetter; in fact it was the warmest and wettest January since records began. Manchester was spared the worst but there was still plenty of rain and the garden is completely sodden. The bird feeder pole has to be replanted every few days because the earth is so soggy it cannot support it. Added to this my cold of the middle of December continued through to the middle of January and I was too ill to get out much even if I had felt inclined to. This did for my plan to see one hundred species in January and, in the end, I didn’t do much better than last year. Very disappointing
Garden Birding
Bird numbers and variety have started to pick up and we regularly see two Mistle Thrushes (sometimes three) and Wren, Dunnock, Robin, and Goldfinches are also frequent. Blue Tits are omnipresent and there are smaller numbers of Great Tit and Coal Tit. We even had a Jackdaw in the garden which was unusual. As usual, when it came to the RSPB Garden Birdwatch, the weather was so wet and windy on Saturday the 30th January that hardly a bird was to be seen all day; mostly they were hiding away from the wind – which is what we did as well. The snow, hail, rain and gales (Storm Gertrude) that were coming over from the USA meant a very cold end to the month as well but the winds dropped and the rain reeded a little on the 31st when we were actually able to do our garden bird count. We managed the usuals (but no Goldfinch or Mistle Thrush) and I actually managed to get a bonus Goldcrest, not in our garden but two gardens along (Paul’s tree) which gave me one bird more than January last year at the very last moment !
Birding Group
The first Birding Group morning of the new year was on 12th January to Pennington Flash where, although the weather was a bit iffy, we managed to stay dry and had a great start to our year with some forty-three species including great views of a mixed flock of Siskin and Lesser Redpolls, two Kingfishers, two Great Spotted Woodpeckers and even a Water Rail !
The second birding group outing of the term, on the 19th January, was to RSPB Burton Mere Wetlands where I hoped to add a fair number of species to my 2016 year list. I wasn’t to be disappointed and, although we did not see the Long-eared Owl that was roosting there we did manage to get long and wonderful views of a Short-eared Owl quartering the marsh from Burton Point. Golden Plover, Kingfisher, Siskin, Linnet, Fieldfare and Redwing were all good birds and all this added up to 43 species for the day.
The last birding group morning of January was a big disappointment as we found out when we got to Tatton Park that they had closed off Dog Wood. We did go round the other side but it amounted to a loing hard slog through mud for very few birds and no new ones for the year at all.
Solo Days Out
We were both so ill over the first two weeks of January that we did not get out hardly at all. Perhaps the easiest bird we got was the very obliging Great Northern Diver at Salford Quays on the9th of January which eluded us at first but, just as we were about to leave, I caught a glimpse of it and we returned to get splendid close views of what must be easiest Great Northern Diver of all time.
We also took a solo day out to The Wirral where we visited New Brighton, West Kirby, Hoylake, Neston Marsh and Burton Mere Wetlands – all on the same day and managing to get a few “year ticks” along the way.
Another solo day out was on the 24th to WWT Martin Mere which gave us a Tawny Owl and a Marsh Harrier as well as a Ross’s Goose but other wise was a bit horrendous; it was a Sunday and the place was heaving despite it not being a very nice day.