January 31, 2012 archive

Jan 31 2012

Summary January 2012

Summary January 2012

Garden

The new year started with very mild weather with some wet days and some quite windy days. The Tits seem to be finding lots of insects already and some days you can see a mist of hovering gnats over the lawn in the back garden. Goldfinch numbers on the feeders peaking at around 18 but Greenfinches not evident. The Blackcap we had occasionally wasn’t seen for a bit but towards the end of the month it returned. The Blackbirds are back on the lawn and the Wood Pigeons and Collared Doves that have been absent for a while have started to reappear dominating the bird table when they can.

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Jan 31 2012

Birding Group Day Out to Martin Mere WWT 31st January 2012

Birding Group Day Out to Martin Mere WWT 31st January 2012

The last day of the month was due to be a visit to Martin Mere and Mere Sands Woods but, in the end, it was decided that there was so much to see at Martin Mere that we would stay there all day rather than leave early to go to the nearby Mere Sands Woods. This decision was made quite early as we had, from the start, started to see some good sighting, especially of raptors.

We started off by going to the Ron Barker hide where we saw three Marsh Harriers.  Although the Pink-footed Geese were mainly all out in the fields for the day, there were a few there and indeed one was grazing just in front of the hide so we got good close views. We also saw around 40 Ruff mixed in with the Lapwing and the very large numbers of Wigeon. Many of the smaller bodies of water were  largely frozen over and as the day went on it got colder still.

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