Summary : April 2015
New Species added to 2015 Year List in April = 11
Running Total for the 2015 UK So Far = 112
New UK Life List Birds In March = 0
Our Garden
Lots of activity now with Tits gadding around, a Dunnock furtling, a Robin putting in an appearance. the two Mistle Thrushes continue their daily visits. The inevitable Woodpigeon has been joined by a Stock Dove. A Sparrowhawk was spotted briefly. There are also a few Goldfinch and a Wren. Mixed weather at the beginning of the month but some sunnier weather towards the last week of the month.
Birding Days Out
We missed the first birding group outing of this term as a result of heavy colds. We also had buildign work being done so in general we didn’t do much birding for the first three weeks of April which was shame because spring was clearly springing. The usual introduction to spring migration, Sand Martin, House Martin, Wheatear, Chiffchaff etc. passed us by. By the time we were done with the building work and the colds we, at last, got out into the countryside with the second birding group outing to RSPB Burton Mere Wetlands, where we managed to get a good count of birds including many migratory birds, out and loud on a beautiful sunny day. This meant that in one day we were able to add ten new species to our year list in a single day. These included Ringed and Little Ringed Plovers, Wheatear, Grasshopper and Sedge Warblers, Willow Warblers and Chiffchaffs, Blackcaps and Whitethroats. We even saw the first Swallows of the year – even though I have not yet seen a Sand Martin or a House Martin. We missed the birding group visits to Pennington Flash and RSPB Leighton Moss because we were on holiday in Mallorca/
Holiday Birding
We flew out to Mallorca on the 23rd April for a fortnight. I was hoping to take advantage of the spring migration and whilst this did not quite work out, the holiday was in no way disappointing. Details of where we went and what we saw are recorded in the daily entries for the fortnight and also the summary page for the whole holiday. We returned to Manchester on the 7th May – just in time to vote and what an election it was !