Birthday Day Out to WWT Martin Mere 17th January 2013

Birthday Day Out to WWT Martin Mere 17th January 2013

As a treat for my birthday, Anne, Mike and I drove up to WWT Martin Mere. This was partly so I could order my new Swarovski ATX scope so I spent half an hour sorting that out with Bernie from the In Focus shop before joining the others at the Raines Hide. Here there were very nice views of one of my favourite water birds – Pintail. There were also Sheldcuk and Wigeon, Moorhen and Coot. We spent a bit of time in this hide but I had heard that the Green winged Teal had been sighted from the Ron Barker Hide so we headed off up there first. In short, it wasn’t to be seen there and there was, in fact, very little there. It just seems it was far too cold and with lots of the bodies of water completely frozen, most of the birds had gone elsewhere We did get a view of a Kestrel and a Buzzard and as we walked back down from Ron Barker we spotted a few Redwing amongst the many Brackbirds on the grass of the car park overflow.

The dropped in at the other hides but they were similarly disappointing – presumably because of the freezing cold. We went to the Harrier Hide and the United Utilities hide but really, there wasn’t much around. From the United Utilities hide we could see a large flock of Pink-footed Geese in the distance but really the highlight was at the Janet Keir hide where I got my very fist sighting of a Woodcock ! It was sitting under a tree well camouflaged but the scrub had obviously been strimmed relatively recently so when you had located the bird the views were fantastic. We sat and watched this bird for a long time, pointing it out to others that came into the hide. Although this was our prize for the day there were also lots of other birds on the feeders there including Pheasant, Reed Buntings, Long-tailed Tits and all the usual suspects.

As the day drew on it was getting bitterly cold so we decided to leave reasonably early and – as is our wont – we found a really nice local pub for a birthday lunch to accompany by birthday present – a Woodcock !

Bird Sightings : WWT Martin Mere Hides and Environs

Bird Sightings : WWT Martin Mere Janet Keir Hide