Apr 30 2024
New “Year Ticks” in April 2024: 20
New “Life Ticks” in April 2024: 0
Total Species for 2024 so far: 88
Our birding month got off to a fine start with a flock of Waxwings that were feeding on some berries at the end of Capenhurst Close in Wythenshawe. We went ther on the 1st and didn’t see them but when we returned the following day we had more luck with good views of a small flock of about thirteen birds. We also managed to get to three of the birding group outings in April.
Apr 30 2024
We had a full house of around 13 people for our morning visit to Macclesfield Forest. It was a nice, sunny day but with a bit of a wind. We started out looking for Garden Warblers in the lower part of the uphill track but I don’t think anone actually saw one. As we continued up the track we had more luck with other birds.
Apr 16 2024
There were only two cars of people for the birding group visit to Pennington Flash. We had to park on the main road as the car park was closed for electrical work that was being done at the bridge on the way down to the car park. We imagined it might be to connect the electric car charging stations in the car park, though it wasn’t obvious what the reason was and their web site gave no reason. Nevertheless we walked from the main road down to the hides. The whole place was incredibly quiet with the usual number of dog walkers absent. It seemed much better and made the extra walk worthwhile. As it happened, we managed to get nine new species for the year -mainly spring migrants.
Apr 09 2024
We had a birding group visit to the Wirral scheduled for the high tide on the 9th April but with a storm developing overnight and in full force during the day, most of the group decided to stay at home. Anne and I and three others in a car from Didsbury braved the weather, though, and hoped for the best.
Continue readingMar 19 2024
We had missed a few birding group sessions through illness and holiday and we only managed to get back in synch for the very last morning of the “term” which was a trek around Marbury Park followed by a planning lnch at the Spinner and Bergemot pub. It was a pretty routine visit with the only hgihlights being Common Gull, Goldeneye and Nuthatch.
Mar 14 2024
Our Lanzarote holiday this year saw us break with tradition by basing ourselves at Puerto Del Carmen instead of Playa Blanca. The hotel was not as full of Spanish Sparrows as the Princessa Yaiza in Playa Blanca but there were still fair numbers and also frequent flybys by Monk Parakeets of which there seems to be a big population. Collared Doves are everywhere and, of course, Yellow-legged Gulls.
Continue readingFeb 29 2024
New “Year Ticks” in February 2024: 28
New “Life Ticks” in February 2024: 0
Total Species for 2024 so far: 66
The month got off to a good start when we managed to see a small flock of Waxwings at the end of Caapenhurst Close in Wythenshawe. The rest of our birding for the month was done with the birding group and included some very good birds including 20 new species for the year.
Feb 20 2024
The birding group outing this week was to Brockholes. We decided not to go there.; instead we went to Burton Mere Wetlands where, last week, we had gone before going up to Parkgate for the high tide. Unfortunately they were strimming all around the scrape that morning, so we had very little chance to see anything there as everything had gone somewhere quieter. This week there were repair works down at Inner Marsh Farm so there wasn’t much prospect of seeing anything there. However, the rest of the site was free of uproar so we had a chance to catch up on a couple of things. When we arrived there were already a lot of cars in the car park, presaging something special. It turned out that an Otter had been seen at the screen hide.
Continue readingFeb 13 2024
We managed to get to Parkgate for a high tide on the 13th February 2024. It was due to be 10.1 metres at 1:33pm and reports from the previous day were remarkable. The tide came all the way in and Jack Snipe and Water Rail were both flushed from the marsh. A Water Rail was found wandering around the pavement outside Nicholl’s Ice Cream Shop and an RSPB person rescued it from danger and returned it to the marsh later. Our expectations were quite high but we were disappointed when the tide really didn’t come in that far. However, we still managed to get some good sightings.
Continue readingDec 31 2023
Unfortunately 2023 was dogged by a combination of health issues and bad weather so there were no real observations for July, August and November and only a couple of outings for December. So, for the year in total there were only 138 species observed.
Continue reading