January 2013 archive

Jan 31 2013

Summary January 2013

Summary January 2013

Garden

January started much like the tail end of December but it was very warm for the time of year. The two Mistle Thrushes are rarer now that they have more or less eaten all the Rose hips at the bottom of the garden. There are plenty of Tits including Coal Tits and we still see the male and female Blackcaps but the only time that we have seen them together they didn’t get on with each other too well. The Dunnock continues to furtle around and I saw a Wren briefly on 4th. We sometimes have a visitation from the House Sparrows from across the ginnel. By the middle of the month the weather got much colder with snowfalls on some days. As usual, Manchester seemed to get off lightly. The snow at the middle of the month meant that some of the birds disappeared for a bit; the Starlings were an example of this, but the ones that did remain were constantly coming to the bird feeders or table.

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Jan 29 2013

Visit to Budworth Mere 29th January 2013

Visit to Budworth Mere 29th January 2013

After the birding group finished up at Neumann’s Flash, Mike and I thought we had enough time to go over to Budworth Mere to see whether that had thawed out since I had been there a few days before. It had almost completely thawed out so there was plenty of open water at the reed bed hide where we spent some time watching two Cormorants fighting over a huge fish that one of them had caught. The struggle to secure the fish was entertaining enough but it was quite a sight to watch the Cormorant try to get it to go down and stay down. We must have watched it for fifteen minutes after it had swallowed the fish and it still seemed to be struggling to keep it down when it eventually disappeared into the distance. We had been told that a Bittern had been seen from the hide ninety minutes before but we had no luck. We had better luck with Kingfishers as I caught a good sighting of one Kingfisher chase another up the mere, turn around at the hide end and zoom back down into the foliage at the other side of the mere.

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Jan 29 2013

Birding Group Visit to Neumann’s Flash 29th January 2012

Birding Group Visit to Neumann’s Flash 29th January 2012

Our planned visit to Marshside and Mere Sands Woods, for a higher than normal tide, was called off due to expected poor weather. Instead we rescheduled to Neumann’s Flash where we were supposed to go to in February. In the end, the weather wasn’t too bad and we largely stayed dry. We parked in the lay-by and turned right down the path that leads to the eastern side of Neumann’s Flash. From the hide we saw a few Pintail, Shovelers, Gadwall and Shelduck and larger numbers of Canada Geese, Mute Swans and Black-headed Gulls but by far the biggest presence was Teal.

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Jan 25 2013

Quest for Great Northern Diver at Budworth Mere 25th January 2013

Quest for Great Northern Diver at Budworth Mere 25th January 2013

I had been reading about the appearance of a juvenile Great Northern Diver that was showing at Budworth Mere so we headed off there on a cold, cold morning. When we arrived there we went to the main hide where we could see that the mere was substantially frozen over. We decided that there wasn’t much chance of seeing the bird from here – despite it showing right in front of the hide a few days before – so we walked down the path past the small boathouse looking for some open water.

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Jan 22 2013

Birding Group Visit to Tatton Park 22nd January 2012

Birding Group Visit to Tatton Park 22nd January 2012

As it was in January of last year, it was a lovely bright but cold day. The difference this year was that there was lots of snow around and the meres were iced over for a significant part of their area.

. We parked up as usual in the lay-by on Mobberley Road and walked down Mallard Close and over the railway bridge to the south entrance. We walked through Dog Wood where we saw both male and female Great Spotted Woodpeckers, the male drumming loudly and resounding throughout the woods. There were Chaffinches, Robins, Blackbirds and Jackdaws aplenty.As we passed through the woods we also saw a Nuthatch and a small group of Siskins, the latter a first for the year. There were, obviously, also a lot of Blue and Great Tits.

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Jan 17 2013

Birthday Day Out to WWT Martin Mere 17th January 2013

Birthday Day Out to WWT Martin Mere 17th January 2013

As a treat for my birthday, Anne, Mike and I drove up to WWT Martin Mere. This was partly so I could order my new Swarovski ATX scope so I spent half an hour sorting that out with Bernie from the In Focus shop before joining the others at the Raines Hide. Here there were very nice views of one of my favourite water birds – Pintail. There were also Sheldcuk and Wigeon, Moorhen and Coot. We spent a bit of time in this hide but I had heard that the Green winged Teal had been sighted from the Ron Barker Hide so we headed off up there first. In short, it wasn’t to be seen there and there was, in fact, very little there. It just seems it was far too cold and with lots of the bodies of water completely frozen, most of the birds had gone elsewhere We did get a view of a Kestrel and a Buzzard and as we walked back down from Ron Barker we spotted a few Redwing amongst the many Brackbirds on the grass of the car park overflow.

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Jan 15 2013

Birding Group Visit to Hoylake 15th January 2013

Birding Group Visit to Hoylake 15th January 2013

After the disappointing visit to Burton Mere Wetlands we decided to rescue the day by driving up to Parkgate and then on to Hoylake. The reason I suggested that we go up to Hoylake was that I had been looking at local sightings on the internet before we set off and had come across a posting on the Dee Estuary Birding web site that mentioned a high tide at Hoylake the day before that had featured tens of thousands of birds whose roost had been pushed up to within a few yards of the promenade at the high tide. The tide was supposed to be reasonably high again today so I suggested to the group that we go there and see if it would be as spectacular today. Since we were only a few miles from there anyway we decided to go just making the briefest of stops at Parkgate en route. There were a few birders at Parkgate but I got the impression that they were – like us – just having a look before setting of for Hoylake. We got to Hoylake around 12.30pm and even before we stopped the car we got a good inkling of what we were in for.

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Jan 15 2013

Birding Group Visit to Burton Mere Wetland 15th January 2013

Birding Group Visit to Burton Mere Wetland 15th January 2013

Our scheduled visit to Burton Mere Wetlands was complicated by the fact that Inner Marsh Farm was closed for continuing work on the pathway to connect it to the main reserve. This happens every Tuesday but does not necessarily mean that there is too much disruption at the main site. However, in addition to this, there was also reed cutting work going on just in front of the main hide at the back of the scrape. This involved about eight people and according to the RSPB volunteers there, all the birds flew off a s soon as the started cutting the reeds. This was particularly annoying as there had been no mention of this on their web site. The upshot was an almost complete lack of birds of any kind on the site.

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Jan 08 2013

Birding Group Visit to Pennington Flash 8th January 2013

Birding Group Visit to Pennington Flash 8th January 2013

The first day of the new birding group term was to Pennington Flash and we had a very good turn out with most of the group present. We were a bit early so we had a look around the car park where there were saw Dunnock, Robin, Blackbird, Woodpigeon and Magpie. As we approached the Horrocks Hide we could see a large flock of Lapwings – perhaps a couple of hundred.

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Jan 07 2013

Visit to Moore Nature Reserve 6th January 2013

Visit to Moore Nature Reserve 6th January 2013

With a slight break in the weather we were determined to get out for a walk and, although the weather was not very promising when we set out, by the time we got to Moore it had picked up considerably and was warm enough for me not to regret leaving my jacket at home.

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