Summary : April 2014
Garden
The garden started to perk up at the start of the month as the Blackbirds and Tits seemed to have young to feed already. Our Dunnock sings from 4.30am onwards pretty much all day. We have had three Goldfinches at most which is a terrible decline from previous years but we at least saw a pair of Greenfinches on one of our feeders for the first time in ages. Towards the end of the month bird activity increased.
Unfortunately the Blue Tit who spent so long messing with the entrance hole to our camera-fitted nest box seems to have given it up. We saw two birds in there at the same time one or two times but nothing seems to have come of it. Perhaps it was a first year bird playing at nesting. In truth the number of birds – except Woodpigeons – has fallen a lot this last year.
Birding Days Out
We had an afternoon walk around Woolston Eyes where we got the first views of the year of the Black-necked Grebes that breed there and also a great view of a Ruddy Duck. A Marsh Harrier was also a good spot.
Birding Group Days Out
The first birding group outing of the month was to Point of Ayr for a highish tide – 9.9m due at 12.45pm. Unfortunately previous experience was not enough to prevent us from missing the tide coming in. I knew that we needed to be in place 2 hours before high tide but some others didn’t seem to agree. I was proved correct so we missed the tide coming in towards the hide – boring !
The second morning out of the month was to Wigan Flashes where we got very nice views of a pair of Red-crested Pochard and first Willow Warbler and House Martins of the year. I missed the third and last outing of the month and term because we had plasterers in the house. It was to Marbury followed by lunch and the planning session for the next term. It was decided not to have a break because Easter had been so early this year so we went straight through to the next Tuesday when we went to Burton Mere Wetland. Here we had the opportunity to use the newly opened footpath between the main reserve and Inner Marsh Farm. Highlights included a life lister, Yellow Wagtail and at the end of the path to the far hide we heard Grasshopper Warblers “reeling”. Over the other side near the barn we also saw a Little Owl. We missed the last birding group Tuesday of the month as we were on a short birding holiday in Somerset and Hampshire.
Holiday Birding
Our holiday in Somerset and the New Forest in Hampshire opened up with a stopover at the Tudor Arms hotel in Slimbridge village and this gave us the opportunity to go to WWT Slimbridge for a short wile before it closed. Here we managed to see two pairs of Cranes, both females nesting. We also got a life tick in a Little Gull that showed so well and so long we had to leave before it had given up showing us what it was about. A Kingfisher rounded the day off nicely as it zipped part the hide.
The following morning we visited WWT Slimbridge before official opening for another view of the Cranes and the Little Gull which showed well again.
We eventually decided we had to get going as we had to get to Montacute in Somerset where we were staying with friends. Before we landed on them, however, we wanted to visit the reserves at Ham Wall and Shapwick Heath where there was the constant sound of Cetti’s Warblers, Bitterns and Cuckoos though we didn’t have much luck seeing them. We did get good views of Marsh Harrier and Great White Egret though and our first Garganey of the year.
We headed off for Montacute and the next day I did a solo visit to RSPB Radipole Lake where I got a nice view of their Hooded Merganser and, again, good views of a Marsh Harrier and also a quick look at a Cetti’s Warbler and a good view of a single Sandwich Tern huddling against a cold wind. Other than that the place was full of Chiffchaffs and Reed Warblers
On the following day it was back to Ham Wall and Shapwick Heath where we approached the site from the opposite end, near the Avalon Centre, and went one of the remoter hides on the reserve. We got good views of a Crow bothering a Marsh Harrier and again there was the constant sound of Bitterns and Cuckoos. The weather was very changeable and it went from being wet to warm and wet again as the afternoon progressed. Over at Ham Wall we managed to see three Great White Egrets.
On the 28th we left Montacute and en route to Hordle at the edge of the new forest we stopped at a new reserve for us, Blashford Lakes. At first the weather was nice and this gave us a chance to get really close views of a Jay and a Great Spotted Woodpecker from the woodland hide. We moved on to the Tern Hide where there were, indeed, Terns which we watched trying to feed in the most torrential rain imaginable. There was also a nice flock of Sand Martins grounded on some bushes sticking out of the lake and also a Little Ringed Plover. When the rain eased off we tried to get to the next hide but the weather was threatening to deluge again so we settled for a quick walk in the woods, where we got a view of Song thrush, before deciding that rain had stopped play.
We drove off for Hordle and at a little cafe I just managed to get a brief sighting of a Goldcrest in the tea garden. We settled into the Premier Inn at Hordle and planned our next days birding which was to start at Beaulieu Road Station in the Shatterford Car Park. We didn’t see the Crossbills (again) but we did see lots of Stonechats and a single Dartford Warbler which, in itself, made my whole week. We also saw a few Tree Pipits which was a nice year tick. In the woods I also got a quick glimpse of a Green Woodpecker which attracted my attention by its “yaffle”. Just as we got back to the car park the rain came bucketing down and we got a bit of a drenching just trying to get our boots off and get into the car !
We headed off for Ashley Walk hoping to get all the way up to Hampton Ridge which is supposed to be good for raptors. Just like the last time we were here, however, we underestimated the distance involved and, disheartened by the fact that we could not see any sign of raptors, we gave up short of the ridge. In any case it was getting too late in the afternoon for us to have any reasonable likelihood of seeing any. We did see a Buzzard on the way back but it wasn’t long before the rains started falling again and on our drive back to Hordle the rain was so heavy it was almost dangerous to drive !
The following day we decided to go to Bolderwood and then on to Fritham and Eyeworth Pond where we had not been before. We wanted to start off nice and early which was a good idea because it felt like we had the whole of Bolderwood woods to ourselves. Song Thrushes everywhere, Cuckoos calling, Great Spotted Woodpeckers drumming, Whitethroats, Wrens, Robins all singing. A Treecreeper creeping and, eventually, as we were nearly at the Canadian monument, a Redstart. We were in no doubt that it was a Redstart because when it flew off it perched just under a branch that a Robin was on giving us an ideal comparison of the two birds.
We drove on to Fritham and then down to Eyeworth Pond where we saw the specialty of the place, a small flock of Mandarin Ducks that breed there in holes in the trees surrounding the pond. One drake was out of the water standing upright and preening giving us fantastic views of this most extravagant bird. We headed back up to Fritham for a spot of lunch and then took a walk onto the heath which was a bit quiet but we did have a single Stonechat for consolation. On our way home we dropped in at Beaulieu Road Station and walked as far as Bishop’s Dyke in order to try to see our Dartford Warbler again but to no avail.
Our last day in the New Forest area was given over to a visit to Keyhaven and Hurst Castle and thus proved to be a long wet day as it drizzled non-stop from beginning to end making the whole thing hard work. Still every rain cloud has its silver lining and in this case it was great views of a small flock of Linnets out at Hurst Castle and later on the same kind of views of a lovely pair of Little Terns, both firsts for the year. These were just the highlights though as we also had great views of Wheatears and Whitethroats and and the species count for the day was forty-three birds. In the end the rain had the beating of us and we gave up rather wet and weary.
This turned out to be the last birding day of the trip as on the 1st May we started our return to Manchester. We were staying the night at Tewkesbury but we stopped at the Cotswold Water Park which we had read was really good. Unfortunately we had totally underestimated the size of this site as it actually contains within its environs whole villages, light industry and several hotels and modern housing developments and miles of roads. In short, it is immense and this disoriented us somewhat. There is no visitor information and when we visited the first few lakes that we had read about in “Where to Watch Birds in Britain”, they had all dried out. We did see and hear a number of woodland and reedland birds but we got a bit fed up of not really knowing where we were going. We returned to the car park where we ran into a birder who told us that the place was actually really good but since it was always evolving, where to look for birds was always changing. He asked us if we were here for a few days or a whole week and this highlighted his idea of what time would be needed to cover the site properly. Be that as it may we did head off to one set of pools that he said were particularly good but we could not find a car park that was not a couple of miles from them so we gave up very disappointed in the end.
We stayed at the Premier Inn in Tewkesbury that night and drove back to Manchester the following morning. Over the period of our holiday we had increased out life list by only one bird but our UK year list was boosted by twenty-three birds (standing at the finish at 139 species) and we had seen a total of ninety-seven species of birds !