Day Out to WWT Martin Mere 2nd March 2012
After our visit to Sizergh Castle we headed to Martin Mere hoping to add a good number of species to our two-day list. On our drive there we saw a Kestrel hovering overhead which was a nice addition to our list. At Martin Mere we didn’t go to all the hides but we visited what we consider to be the main ones starting, as often, at the Ron Barker hide where there were around three hundred Pink-footed Geese in the far field to the right of the hide. There were also large numbers of Starlings on the ground mixed in with the other birds. By far the dominant bird numerically, however, were the Wigeon; there must have been at least five hundred. There were also a few Whooper Swans and lots of Shelduck and Teal but the highlight was the newly arrived flock of Avocets. At first when we looked there seemed to be only around a dozen but soon enough more flew in and we managed to count around 120. As we went around the site, however, there seemed to be more of them dispersed here and there. There was also a flock of around 150 Lapwing, a small flock of Dunlin; a few Black-tailed Godwit; a Ruff and a couple of RInged Plovers.