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.
We did see a few Lapwing, Moorhen, Coot, Teal, Mallards and Canada Geese on the water and at the far hide we saw some Black-tailed Godwit and a small group of Dunlin that entertained us greatly with their flight patterns and comings and goings. We had a somewhat distant view of a Buzzard in the distance perched upon a small tree but, that apart, there was hardly anything around and with the water being largely frozen over and the disruption at the site there wasn’t much likelihood of anything coming back any time soon.
We walked back t the main hide and saw the usual birds around the feeders, Blue and Great Tits, Long-tailed Tits, Goldfinch, Nuthatch, Chaffinch, Blackbirds, Robins and Magpies. We were all a bit thwarted and at a loss but before we set off in the morning I had been looking on the internet and came across reference to a high tide the day before at Hoylake where there had been a huge number of Knot, Dunlin and Sanderling so I asked about this at the reception hide and one of the RSPB volunteers there said they had been at Hoylake the day before and it had been amazing. I suggested to the group that we go there and see what there was to see. I already knew that high tide was due to be at 1.30pm so everyone agreed and off we went. Everyone was as pleased at the outcome as they were disappointed by our short visit tot Burton Mere. More of this in the next blog entry.