Garden
The very pleasant weather changed a bit at the beginning of the month with snow in lots of parts of the country for a day or two. We didn’t get any in Manchester but the temperatures dropped quite a bit. The garden is very busy with all sorts of birds bathing every day and on 7th we saw the first Robin fledgling of the year in the garden. It was being shown where to wash and find food. The Great Tits and House Sparrows and Blackbirds seem to be bathing non stop and we have now provided three different bird baths for them. By the middle of the month there were frequent hail showers, sometimes quite severe. There is a Dunnock that looks very much like it is nesting in the ivy at the end of the garden. Goldfinches in their usual numbers and the occasional visit by a Coal Tit. By the last week of the month many of the birds were lying low as we experienced torrential rain and very high winds. This April has been the wettest on record.
Walks and Days Out
On 11th of April I was in London so I went to WWT Barnes where I had great views of Sand Martins and Wheatears.
Birding Group
On 17th of April we went to Neumann’s Flash and Haydn’s Pool 17th April 2012 where we had a great day with a species count of 41 including the first Willow Warbler of the year and good views of raptors. We missed the visit to Pennington Flash on the 24th of April due to a family funeral on that day.
Summary
A death in the family curtailed our birding for a large part of April.