Summary April 2013
Garden
Although April started out still cold, there were some signs in the first week of the possibility of Spring happening. It has at least been dry for a couple of weeks so the surrounding countryside is getting a chance to soak up the record rainfalls of March. Disturbingly there have been a few newspaper reports of migratory birds arriving in Britain to find that there are no insects around to eat yet. Eleven Stone Curlews were found dead in Norfolk and the conclusion byt he RSPB was that, since they were all severely underweight, they had died of starvation – possibly during the recent snows.
In the garden the Blackbirds are ever present and challenging each other. Robin and Dunnock are flitting about and sometimes singing. The plague that is Woodpigeon and Collared Dove has resumed and some snails have started to appear. We have had to put more wire netting back up at the bottom of the garden to try to discourage the cats – now five of them – that like to chase birds in our garden. As many as four male Blackbirds have been competing for our garden whilst a single female busies herself eating.
Birding Group Days Out
The first birding group day of the term was to Moore Nature Reserve on the 9th April but due to holidays etc we were a small group of just six of us. Still we had a good day seeing a pair of Sand Martins and hearing the first Chiffchaff of the year. We also had fantastic views again this year of Lesser Spotted Woodpecker.
The second birding group day of the term was to Inner Marsh Farm on the 15th April – a Monday due to the work that goes on there on Tuesdays where we saw our first Wheatear of the year and our first Swallow. We went on afterwards to Burton Mere Wetland where we had nice views of a Lesser Redpoll and well as seeing good numbers of Black-tailed Godwit and Avocets. We missed the following two weeks visits to Pennington Flash and Marshside as we were on holiday in Somerset and Dorset, of which more below.
Walks and Days Out
On the 6th April we went spent the morning at Mere Sands Wood and the afternoon at WWT Martin Mere neither of which produced anything unusual for us but it was such a nice day for a walk we didn’t feel too hard done by. Unusually for us it was a Saturday so Martin Mere was very busy but the remoter corners of the site are always quieter and with the Whooper Swans and Pink Footed Geese away now it is much much quieter. I suppose they have to go so that you can look forward to their return every year ! On the 20th it was such a nice day that we decided to go for a walk to Sale Water Park and were rewarded with our first Willow Warbler and Common Sandpiper of the year.
Holiday Birding In Dorset and Somerset
We went south for a week to do some birding in Dorset and then went on to visit friends in Somerset, breaking up our journey south by staying a night at the Tudor Arms Hotel in
Slimbridge on the night of 22nd April. We arrived with a little time to spare so we had a chance to make a short visit to WWT Slimbridge where the highlight was a view of three Cranes. On the morning of the 23rd we returned to WWT Slimbridge where we again got great views of the Cranes, – this time displaying very interesting behaviour – and also the Arctic Terns, a Little Egret and a Kingfisher as well as a host of other birds.
On the morning of the 24th we went on a guided walk to RSPB Arne where we took a guided walk of the site and saw a Curlew and a Whimbrel and also saw some late departing Dark Bellied Brent Geese and a few Sandwich Terns.
Later in the afternoon we headed over to Weymouth to visit the RSPB site at Radipole Lake where we had a good view of a Hooded Merganser and an Egyptian Goose and saw and heard lots of summer migrants.
On the 25th we went over to Brownsea Island where we had a fantastic day, firstly at the Dorset Wildlife Trust site and then generally around the rest of the parts of the island open to the public. The pick of the days sightings were Avocets, Godwits, Turnstones, Common and Sandwich Terns, Snipe and our first view of a Spotted Redshank in summer plumage – almost completely black with shining spots – now we know why they are called Spotted Redshanks.
We left Poole on the morning of 26th and we drove via Studland Bay and RSPB Arne on our way to Montacute where we were to stay with friends. This brief visit to Arne gave us our first Spoonbills of the year but still no Dartford Warbler.
Whilst at Montacute we managed to fit in one day of good birding on the 27th and that was at the RSPB reserves Ham Wall at Ham Wall and Shapwick Heath The highlights here were the Black Winged Stilts and the sounds of booming Bitterns and singing Warblers. Before we left Somerset we managed to fit in another visit to Ham Wall where we got our very first sightings of not one Bittern but three! Additionally we got our first drake Garganey of the year and at Shapwick Heath we got great views of Hobbies and rather more distant views of a Great White Egret flying in and out of the reed beds. We also got our first Little Ringed Plover of the year.
As with our trip down from Manchester, we again broke up our journey back home by staying over at Slimbridge where we had a final chance to see the Cranes again.
It was great to be able to get to all of these sites within a week at this time of year. In total we saw 86 species and added 23 species to our year list and three lifers in Bittern, Hooded Merganser and Black Winged Stilt and discovered the fantastic sits at Arne, Ham Wall and Shapwick Heath – places we simply must go to again. All in all a great months birding !