Summary November 2012
Garden
This surely must have been the quietest November in our garden for years. For the whole first part of November there were very few birds around except the usual Goldfinches and a few Tits. Towards the middle of the month a Blackbird started visiting the garden and a Robin comes occasionally but mostly can be seen singing from a neighbour’s tree. I saw three Starlings in a tree in the park from our back door but that was all. I haven’t even seen the usual thrushes that we see from our front garden. I found a dead squirrel in the garden but couldn’t figure out what killed it. I put it in the bin thinking that at least it wouldn’t be on the bird table but as soon as I had shut the door there was another one – alive and eating on the bird table.
As the middle of the month cam along, the rain started to fall again with severe flooding int he midlands and the south. In the north-west we got off lightly though it still rained torrentially as it seems to have done all this year. The last week of the month saw a bit of an increase in the Goldfinch presence int he garden and on the 27th we counted forty-two in a tree two gardens away.
As the month came to an end the weather suddenly got colder and drier with some sunny days. This brought birds back to the bird table and on the last day of the month we had two Mistle Thrushes a Blackbird, Robin, Great and Blue Tits, Dunnock and Robin all visiting – not to mention Grey Squirrel and Woodpigeon and Collared Doves. On the feeder the Goldfinches and Tits are more frequently seen.
I decided I wasn’t getting much use out of my nest camera so I took it out and fixed it over the bird table and wired it into the HD recorder so I can record several hours at a time and review it in fast forward later to see what has been visiting the table when we are not looking.
Birding Group Days Out
The first birding group visit of the month was to Moore Nature Reserve. The weather was quite wet and the only real highlight was our first Redwings of the year – for certain ! We missed the second visit to Redesmere because of flu but apparently there was nothing special to be seen. Our day out to the RSPB reserve at Conwy on the 20th was messed up because the reserve was repairing their car park on that day and had closed the entire site. Instead we went for a walk down estuary at Conwy and then on to Llanferfechan. Anne and I stayed over however so we managed to get to the RSPB reserve at Conwy anyway and we got a first – a Water Rail. On the 27th we went to Marbury Country Park but there wasn’t anything special to see there.
Walks and Days Out
The visit to the RSPB reserve at Conwy was supposed to be a day out with the birding group but it didn’t work out that way so it ended up as a solo day out for us – the highlight of which was a first sighting of a Water Rail. We also went to the Sunday North-west Bird Fair at WWT Martin Mere where we saw another first – a Brambling. Another top day for us was the sighting (for nearly two hours) of nearly a hundred waxwings off Arnott Crescent, Hulme so this month we have had a couple of lifers and a year tick of Waxwings in huge numbers – Fantastic !