Summary June 2013
Garden
June started surprisingly warm and sunny although it was still cold in the evenings. On the first of the month I saw a Buzzard circling overhead. A remarkable feature in the garden of late has been the regular visits from a pair of Mistle Thrushes who seem largely unconcerned about our presence in the garden when it is warm enough to sit out. One day I saw them both sitting in the bird bath together and on the 4th of June we were sitting in the garden when a third bird also appeared and it was occasionally fed by one of the other two. Obviously this was a young fledgling of the other two. They eventually flew of the the house roofs at the back of us and our conviction, established earlier, that we could hear other Mistle Thrushes calling nearby was confirmed when we saw another three birds briefly also perched on the house roofs. Six Mistle Thrushes at the same time.
At last there are more Swifts to be seen, though still only a maximum of six so far. We also have occasional visits from a pair of Starlings but that, too, is very poor compared to previous years. A Robin is fairly regular visitor as well. By far the most stunning development is the almost complete disappearance of Goldfinches from our feeders these last three months or so. I looked back at a previous blog entry for July of last year and, whilst we were away on holiday for a part of that month, I did record in the monthly summary for June 2012 the presence of ten Goldfinches on our feeder and by July that was about fourteen including some young birds.
Anne was given an electronic cat deterrent for her birthday so we are trialing that at the moment. Anne did see a cat hidden in the plants near the bird bath so it may have avoided the sensor by being hidden in the foliage. I have not, however, had a repeat of a recent occurrence of a cat patrolling the lawn and sitting under the bird feeder pole. Towards the end of the month I saw a Chaffinch on our feeder and a single Starling.
Birding Group
The first birding group day of June was to Goyt Valley where, despite birds being a bit hard to come by, we had very good views of Redstarts. On the 11th we went to RSPB Conwy which was fairly quiet but we had a nice walk anyway and saw a single Barnacle Goose. From here we drove on to the North Wales Wildlife Trust site, The Spinnies, Aberogwen the highlights of which were very large numbers of Oystercatchers indeed and smaller but still impressive numbers of roosting Curlew, lots of Little Egrets and Common, Arctic and Sandwich Terns all plunging into the sea to feed.
We missed the visit to Etherow Country Park that was scheduled for the 18th because we had visiting relatives but we did get to Brockholes Nature Reserve on the 25th where we again had two sightings of a Kingfisher (possible two different ones) and great views of a Sedge Warbler. We also saw the Black Swan and had both Ringed and Little Ringed Plovers.
It was decided to call an early end to the birding term and to miss out Dove Stone altogether. One of our group had been there recently and said that it hadn’t been very productive. That meant that the last birding group day was going to be Marbury on the 2nd of July which was also to be the planning meeting for next term. Unfortunately we will be on holiday by then in the Azores so we will miss it. Well perhaps “unfortunately” isn’t quite the right word.
One last birding day we had that was notable was our visit to Woolston Eyes Reserve Open Day on the 30th June. Even though it was the day before we were due to go on holiday to the Azores we felt we had to make time to visit the home of 25% of the UK breeding population of Black-necked Grebes and we had fantastic views of a couple of family groups as well as seeing a Wren close-up at a ringing session and lots of other great birds. It was agreat day out and we resolved to go there again soon when we could take more time going round the reserve.