April 2012 archive

Apr 30 2012

Summary April 2012

Garden

The very pleasant weather changed a bit at the beginning of the month with snow in lots of parts of the country for a day or two. We didn’t get any in Manchester but the temperatures dropped quite a bit. The garden is very busy with all sorts of birds bathing every day and on 7th we saw the first Robin fledgling of the year in the garden. It was being shown where to wash and find food. The Great Tits and House Sparrows and Blackbirds seem to be bathing non stop and we have now provided three different bird baths for them. By the middle of the month there were frequent hail showers, sometimes quite severe. There is a Dunnock that looks very much like it is nesting in the ivy at the end of the garden. Goldfinches in their usual numbers and the occasional visit by a Coal Tit. By the last week of the month many of the birds were lying low as we experienced torrential rain and very high winds. This April has been the wettest on record. Continue reading

Apr 17 2012

Birding Group Visit to Neumann’s Flash and Haydn’s Pool 17th April 2012

Birding Group Visit to Neumann’s Flash and Haydn’s Pool 17th April 2012

The weather for the first morning of the new “term” for the birding group did not seem that auspicious to start with as it was raining from early morning. However, by the time we got to Neumann’s Flash entrance lay-by it was starting to get quite nice and this is how it progressed until the moment we finished when the rain started up again. So we were lucky with the weather but we were also lucky with the birding as we managed to log forty one species in a couple of hours.

Continue reading

Apr 11 2012

Day Out to WWT Barnes 11th April 2012

Day Out to WWT Barnes 11th April 2012

While we were in London visiting relatives it seemed like a good chance to go out to Barnes to the Wetland Centre. I had only been once before and was keen to have a second look. It was a lovely, sunny day with just hints that it might rain occasionally but this had its downside as well as its upside. It has to be said about Barnes that there are very few parts of the site that cannot be visited with a pushchair and whilst this is great for disabled access it does mean that many of the hides and the environs generally can be dominated by mothers with very young children. When I was there I would guess that the majority of the visitors were young children for whom the site is a bit of a nature play park.

Continue reading

Apr 08 2012

Birding Group Schedule April – June 2012

Birding Group Schedule April – June 2012

Continue reading

Apr 03 2012

Birding Group Visit to Marbury Country Park 3rd April 2012

Birding Group Visit to Marbury Country Park 3rd April 2012

We had a bit of a dodgy start to our morning out with the birding group as we got no further than a couple of streets away before we realized that we had a completely flat tyre. This meant that we had to wait for an hour for the repair van to arrive to fix it. By the time that was done and we were back on our way we were at least an hour and a quarter behind the others in the group. We still wanted to go, however, as much because this was the “last day of term” where it is customary for the group to have a lunch and plan the next terms places to visit. Given that there were already a lot of people away that week the three of us amounted to half those able to attend. So we continued on our way hoping to meet up with the others somewhere along the route when we got to Marbury.

Continue reading

Apr 01 2012

Summary March 2012

Garden

All the garden birds seem to feel that Spring is springing with the Dunnocks in particular spending a lot of time singing and gadding about. On the 9th, 13th, 14th and 15th we had a male and a female Bullfinch on the ground under the feeder which is a real rarity for us though others who live nearer the Mersey say they have them in their gardens more regularly. On 14th we had a Wren bobbing around the garden furniture looking for bugs. As the month went on the weather got much better and became quite spring-like – sunny and dry and the 27th – 29th were gloriously sunny and warm – more like Summer than Spring. Continue reading