Dec 31 2011
December saw the weather turn a little colder and much wetter after a very mild November. With the rain and cold came the birds and our garden has started to look more familiar. Each day there are at least a couple of dozen Goldfinches at a time on the feeders; two Greenfinches are reasonably common.
Dec 22 2011
On 22nd we went to Chorlton Water Park where we parked up and then went for a walk. It was a beautiful winter day with lots of sun and unusually mild considering it was nearly Christmas – not at all like last year ! We started out going counter-closkwise to keep the low sun out of our eyes. The usual mixture of Black-headed Gulls and Canada Geese dominated though there were a couple of Cormorants flying overhead and a Wigeon on the water. We decided that we would take the opportunity to go to Kenworthy Woods Continue reading
Dec 13 2011
The birding group usually occupies our Tuesdays but last week was the last group-day before Christmas so we were keen to get out for a day birding before the demands of Christmas got too pressing and before the bad weather set in. We fancied going up to Martin Mere WWT – a regular haunt of ours but the television weather forecasts were pretty ominous with snow and storms predicted. However, Monday had been quite nice in Manchester despite forecasts so we weren’t convinced. A quick look on the internet for a more detailed forecast indicated that it might be worth the risk so we decided to wait until morning and look out the window before deciding – the scientific approach. As it happened the morning was cold but sunny so we set off and we were glad that we did because we saw some awesome bird behavior as well as some fine birds and a life first for us.
Dec 12 2011
In a break in the patch of wet weather we have had recently I went for a walk in Chorlton – along the burn, down to the Mersey, over the bridge and through Sale Water Park and returning to Chorlton Green via Jackson’s Bridge. Normally this would be a fairly mundane walk with no great expectation of seeing anything out of the ordinary. Perhaps it was the cold weather but it turned out to be much more interesting than usual and particularly enjoyable as a result of the dog walkers and cyclists and joggers being put off by the cold.
Dec 06 2011
On 6th December we all met up at Dunham Massey but the weather was pretty poor so we only went for a short walk after lunch there. The lunch was the birding group’s end of term meeting to plan for the next term where a rough schedule was made up as follows :