August 2014 archive

Aug 31 2014

Summary : August 2014

Summary : August 2014

Birding Days Out

On the 8th August we drove up to WWT Martin Mere where we managed to see a nice pair of Wood Sandpipers. On the 12th we went up to Hoylake for a high tide (13.01hrs (BST), 9.8m) where we had close views of large numbers of Dunlin, Ringed Plovers and Sandwich Terns. A Visit to Woolston Eyes was less sepctacular but still a nice day out.

On the 26th August we we stayed overnight at Arnside which gave us the chance to have a long visit to RSPB Leighton Moss where we had good views of Greenshank, Spotted Redshanks, Water Rails and Great White Egrets. We stayed overnight and went back to the reserve on the following day.

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Aug 27 2014

RSPB Leighton Moss and Arnside : 26th – 27th August 2014

RSPB Leighton Moss : 8th – 9th August 2014

Some nice recent sitings at Leighton Moss tempted us up there but it’s quite a long drive and we wanted to have a full day there so we decided to take advantage of the high tide by staying overnight and having two shots as the RSPB reserve as well as having a bit of an away day. We stayed at Ye Old Fighting Cocks at Arnside which was pretty cheap, had reasonable food and beer and was nicely situated so some of the rooms overlook “the lake” that is to say the Kent Channel which feeds into Morecambe Bay, itself quite an interesting place for birds at the right time of year and tide. But our interest mainly lay in what we could see at RSPB Leighton Moss.

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Aug 19 2014

Wooston Eyes : 19th August 2014

Wooston Eyes : 19th August 2014

A day out to Woolston Eyes seemed overdue, so as it was a nice day we ventured out. As it happens it wasn’t a very special birding day but it was a lovely day and we enjoyed our walk around the site. Apparently there is still one Balck-necked Grebe juvenile still there but the rest have all dispersed so there wasn’t anything special to see. It is, of course, a bit between the seasons but there were still a fair number of Hirundines still around and it is always a pleasure to see the large numbers of Greenfinch still thriving on the feeders there.

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Aug 12 2014

High Tide at Hoylake : 12th August 2014

High Tide at Hoylake : 12th August 2014

Another high tide of 9.8 metres at 1pm took us to Hoylake for the hard to resist spectacle of large numbers of waders. This time the tide came nearly all the way in to the promenade so that huge numbers of Dunlin – estimated at 2,800 – ended up about 100 feet from the promenade.

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Aug 08 2014

Wood Sandpipers at Martin Mere : 8th August 2014

Wood Sandpipers at Martin Mere : 8th August 2014

Having been a bit preoccupied of late we were keen to take the opportunity of a nice day to follow reports of a pair of Wood Sandpipers seen from the Ron Barker Hide at Martin Mere WWT. We got there pretty quickly and after a cup of tea we headed straight up to the Ron Barker hide where we met a chap who had been looking at a pair of birds but wasn’t sure if they were the Wood Sandpipers or not.  The two birds concerned kept drifting off behind some reeds and would not give us constant views making a positive ID difficult.

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