Birding Group Visit to Marbury Country Park 3rd April 2012

Birding Group Visit to Marbury Country Park 3rd April 2012

We had a bit of a dodgy start to our morning out with the birding group as we got no further than a couple of streets away before we realized that we had a completely flat tyre. This meant that we had to wait for an hour for the repair van to arrive to fix it. By the time that was done and we were back on our way we were at least an hour and a quarter behind the others in the group. We still wanted to go, however, as much because this was the “last day of term” where it is customary for the group to have a lunch and plan the next terms places to visit. Given that there were already a lot of people away that week the three of us amounted to half those able to attend. So we continued on our way hoping to meet up with the others somewhere along the route when we got to Marbury.

When we arrived there it was already quite late so we decided to walk in the opposite direction to that which the others would probably take which mean that we started at the hide at the edge of Budworth Mere nearest to the car park. There were Great Crested Grebes everywhere on the water – in total probably around twenty of them ! There were also Coots and Tufted Ducks and the usual Black-headed Gulls and Canada Geese. There were Tits and Reed Buntings on the bird feeders there.  On the far side there was a smattering of Shelduck but the best sighting was of a large flock of mixed House and Sand Martins feeding over the Mere – the first we had seen this year. The other group members weren’t so sure about any of them being Sand Martins but I was reasonably convinced and I subsequently did an internet search for Sand Martins and Budworth Mere and found a recording of mixed Sand Martins, House Martins and Swallows for the day before our visit so I was fairly convinced I had been right.

We walked along the edge of the Mere until we got about half way along where we ran into the other three that had made it. They told us to have a look at the bird hide that overlooks the feeders and the woods which is at the half way mark of the Mere. They had seen a male Greater Spotted Woodpecker making a hole in a dead tree. The others had already been there for quite some time and were getting cold, the day being damp and a bit miserable-  a sudden change from the recent good weather – so they decided that they would head off to the Spinner and Bergamot pub for their lunch. We decided that we had some birding still to do so we headed off the feeder hide to look for Woodpeckers and we told them we would catch up with them later.

At the hide, looking out the right-hand openings there were two dead trees next to each other and on one of them there was a Woodpecker making its hole; now well advanced the bird completely disappeared into the tree hole at some points before re-emerging. This bird was clearly a female, however, not having any red on the nape. We watched this bird for quite some time. The woods were full of tits and we also say a Jay, a Nuthatch and a Chiffchaff. After a while, we too were getting damp and a bit hungry so we went off to meet up with the others at the pub to plan the next term of mornings birding.

Bird Sightings : Marbury Country Park