Tatton Park : 26th January 2016
The birding group morning this week was to Tatton Park which turned out to be a total waste of time and quite exhausting. Due to the threated (but not materialising) high winds the authorities had decided to close Dog Wood which was a shame beacause my only reason for going there (rather than to the Wales which was my preferred option to get pelagic birds) was to get some woodland birds for my year list and I felt sure that I could get Nuthatch and Treecreeper at least. It wasn’t to be and the morning was a long hard slog instead.
We were left a bit short of alternative ideas when we found out that we could not access Tatton Park from the usual entrance to Dog Wood. As nobody could think of an alternative, off the cuff, it was decided to go downhill to the left and cross the (very) soggy bottom until we reached the entrance to the small park at the other end of the mere. From there we walked uphill to the village and then turned right until, just past the high street, we got to another entrance to the park. This led us along the opposite side to that which we usually take but it proved to be a lot of walking for very few birds. There were Goldeneye and Great Crested Grebe and Shoveler etc. but that was about it. After a couple of hours of this we were bored and there was still a long way to go to the hide overlooking Melchet Mere. In the end we all gave up around 12.30pm and headed home a bit disappointed and knackered.