December 2013 archive

Dec 30 2013

2013 Annual Summary

Summary 2013

We had several holidays or breaks where we had an opportunity to see birds we would not normally see or just to get our “year list” up to speed. These included our first guided birding during a visit to Norfolk and Cambridgeshire in March, a visit to Somerset and Dorset in May that enabled us to get to many wetland reserves, short trips in July and August to Angelsey and East Yorkshire and, best of them all, our trip to Scotland in October which took in visits to Montrose Basin, Loch of Strathbeg and environs and on our return a stopover at WWT Caerlaverock. In between we had three great days of birding in the Highlands of which more below. November was largely a birding group month for us as was the first half of December but in the last two weeks of December we went on a splurge of “twitching” that gave us some great year and life ticks.

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Dec 30 2013

Summary December 2013

Summary December 2013

Garden

December started a little damp and temperatures were a bit up and down sometimes being quite mild and at other times cold. The garden birds are still finding food in the wild and the Blackbirds started the month still eating berries from the trees. The Robins and Tits are clearly still able to find some insects and you can see little columns of gnats spiraling above the middle of the lawn. On the 5th we had a brief visit by a Sparrowhawk eying up some Goldfinches. By the end of the month the weather had got much colder with strong winds some days but, even then, there seems to be quite a shortage of birds around. Even the Goldfinches are a bit on and off – surprising. We did get a small flock of Redwings a couple of gardens down and three Blackbirds are regularly visiting our garden now. The general impression, however, is of a dramatic lack of birds of any kind compared to most years ! A nice little end to the year was the visitation of a flock of forty Redwing on a tree at the end of our garden. They dropped down, six at a time, to feed on the Rowan Tree in our opposite neighbour’s garden. A single Mistle Thrush looked on a bit worried about the tree being degraded.

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Dec 28 2013

Buff-bellied Pipit and Siberian Chiffchaff, Burton Marsh 28th December 2013

Buff-bellied Pipit and Siberian Chiffchaff, Burton Marsh 28th December 2013

Siberian Chiffchaff, Burton Marsh, Dec 2013

Siberian Chiffchaff, Burton Marsh, Dec 2013

The reported presence of a Buff-bellied Pipit and a Siberian Chiffchaff at Burton Marsh was too much to resist and with just a few days of 2013 left I was determined to add another tick to my 2013 year list – indeed a it would be a life tick ! Being a Saturday we were pretty sure that we would be in the company of a few other birders but I wasn’t really expecting the eighty to one hundred birders that must have been there whilst we were.

We took the same route as we would have done if we were going to Inner Marsh Farm but we kept on the road as it bears right along the edge of the marsh (Station Road). We found a parking spot there and set up the scope. Continue reading

Dec 22 2013

The Pensarn Hoopoe : 22nd December 2013

The Pensarn Hoopoe : 22nd December 2013

Hoopoe Pensarn December 2013

Hoopoe Pensarn December 2013

I had been looking at the presence of this bird at Pensarn for quite some time on the bird alert services, Rare Bird Alert and Rare Bird Network, the latter of which I now access via Twitter. Both had been showing the bird for weeks after it had presumably been blown off its migratory journey to Africa due to very bad weather – it had landed at Castle Cove Caravan Park in Pensarn near Abergele where it seems to have been roosting under a caravan. The caravan is almost entirely unoccupied in winter so there isn’t much disturbance and the bird has been feeding quite well during its unscheduled stay.The worry is, of course, that it will not be able to get back on course and when the winter sets in and the ground freezes it is going to find it hard to feed. It may need to be rescued before it dies. With very high winds the day we went, and more to come, it is remotely possible that it could get back on track – but hard to imagine. In any case, for the moment it is doing well.

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Dec 14 2013

Search for Crossbills, Broomhead Reservoir 14th December 2013

Search for Crossbills, Broomhead Reservoir 14th December 2013

Two barred Crossbill Broomhead Reservoir Dec 2013

Two barred Crossbill Broomhead Reservoir Dec 2013

I had been looking for weeks at the sightings of Two-barred and Common Crossbills listed on the Birdguides “Bird News Anywhere” site but had not yet found the time to get over to Broomhead Reservoir which is nearly at Sheffield. On a Sunday and the weather looking reasonable, we decided to give it a bash. I still was not sure whether I could rely on the Ross’s Goose at Marshside two days ago to give me the tick that took me over last years species count so this opportunity to add to my 2013 year list and, indeed, to possibly add two life ticks was too good to miss. Continue reading

Dec 12 2013

Visit to Marshside RSPB 12th December 2013

Visit to Marshside RSPB 12th December 2013

I had been reading about a sighting of a Baikal Teal that had been seen at RSPB Marshside on Sutton’s Marsh, viewable from the path and just behind the sewage works so we decided to drive up thereto see if luck would shine on us. Of interest, also, were reports of a Possibly/probably (?) escaped Ross’s Goose and a Long-tailed Duck. With three chances like that we thought we would bound to be lucky at least with one or more of them if not all. So it was with high hopes we set off on a not too bad day, weather-wise.

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Dec 11 2013

Provisional Bird Group Venues for Winter Term

Provisional Bird Group Venues for Winter Term

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Dec 10 2013

Birding Group Visit to Dunham Massey 10th December 2013

Birding Group Visit to Dunham Massey 10th December 2013

The last birding group day out before Christmas was to Dunham Massey. It started out a nice morning but gradually got duller. As we left the car park we saw a small flock of Redwing fly over the park but this was not an indication of things to come as, unfortunately, it was not one of our better visits notable for the lack of Woodpeckers, Mistle and Song Thrushes and Jays. We did see a couple of Treecreepers and Nuthatches but that was about it. We spent a long time examining a flock of Chaffinches looking for a Brambling and, whilst I did think I might have got a brief glance, we concluded that nobody had it for long enough to say for sure. We had lunch there and made a preliminary sketch of the potential venues for our days out for the first few months of 2014.

 

Dec 07 2013

Visit to Hoylake and Parkgate for High Tide 7th December 2013

Visit to Hoylake and Parkgate for High Tide 7th December 2013

Dunlin, Hoylake, 7th December 2013

Dunlin, Hoylake, 7th December 2013

We dropped in at Burton Mere Wetland in the morning hoping to see the Little Stint. We were disappointed with that but undaunted we headed off for Hoylake for a high tide of approximately 9.8 m (32.1 ft) at around 2pm. We had intended to go there on the 5th but the weather was so bad that it was dangerous to drive with very high winds on the motorway and extensive flooding on the Wirral. The usual magic combination of low pressure, high tide and strong westerly winds all came together on the fifth to produce storms and flooding in many parts of the country. At Parkgate, for the first time in seven or eight years, the water came all the way in and the old baths car park was reported to be flooded half an hour before high tide. At New Brighton the promenade was inundated and the local Morrissons car park was completely flooded with some cars actually floating!  A little more than ideal, then. This tide was a little lower and the high winds had gone. Still it was a nice spectacle anyway. Continue reading

Dec 07 2013

Visit to Burton Mere Wetlands 7th December2013

Visit to Burton Mere Wetlands 7th December 2013

We were due to visit Burton Mere Wetlands and Hoylake on the 5th but the weather was so bad that we decided not to risk the weather and the roads. By the 7th the weather had calmed down a bit so we decided to go to Hoylake for a slightly less high tide than that due on the 5th. Since this was a bit later in the day we decided to take in Burton Mere Wetlands before heading off for Hoylake. In particular I was hoping to see the Little Stint that has been seen there regularly of late.

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