December 2017 archive

Dec 31 2017

2017 Annual Summary

2017 Summary

Our birding year got off to a good start with productive trips to North Wales where we got Snow Buntings and Hawfinch. A week later we went to Newchurch Common where we got Red-crested Pochard and Smew.

Less happily we had to go to Portugal for the funeral of a good friend of ours around about the time of my birthday. We had to spend several days there as a result of limited flights in winter, so we consoled ourselves with walks around Lagos where we did some casual birding getting great views of the town’s local White Stork population Continue reading

Dec 28 2017

Marbury Park 28th December 2017


Our last outing for the year was to Marbury Park on the 28th. We had hoped to see both the Hawfinches and the Bittern that had been seen there in recent days. Unfortunately we didn’t see either and nobody else we met had either. Some birders who had seen both knew exactly where to find them but they just weren’t there. Hopefully we can get the Hawfinches there in the New Year. Mosre disappointing was nto seeing the Bittern in the usual reed bed; in part because, incredibly, we had not seen a Bittern this year !. It is hard to imagine how that is possible considering all the places we have been to this year.

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Dec 05 2017

Burton Mere Wetlands etc 5th December 2018


On the 5th December the birding group headed up to the Wirral for a high tide of 9.9 metres at 11:55am. We started out with a quick stop at Burton Mere Wetlands where we just looked around the main scrape and walked down to the barn. On the walk we got Great Spotted Woodpecker but there were not the large numbers of winter thrushes we had seen on our last visit.

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