Burton Mere Wetlands and Neston Old Quay 22nd April 2021

Our first birding day out for six whole months was on the 22^nd April when we went to Burton Mere Wetlands and then on to the Old Quay at Neston. BMW was still very limited with no hides open and even the mound they had made for observing the scrape had been closed off because of the birds breeding. They did no want people standing on the horizon. This mean that our best view of the scrape was from the main decking, looking through the closed reception area an onto the scrape. Hardly ideal but that was what was available. We made the best of it on a gloriously sunny day.

We did walk down to the old barn but there was no view of the scrape at all, so we returned to the main entrance to see what we could at a long distance and through glass as described earlier. We could hear that the scrape was dominated by the Black-headed Gulls but it wasn’t possible to pan through them looking for any Med Gulls. One highlight was the good numbers of Avocets present. The electric fence they installed some time back has improved their breeding – indeed the breeding of all the birds there – that they have taken advantage on the Covid lock-down to extent the electric fencing hoping to maximise the protection afforded to the breeding birds of all sorts.

What we were left with was a walk along the boardwalk which gave us some of the sounds of spring that we enjoy so much with lots of Cetti’s Warblers singing – we got good views of two of them but here were many more. We got our first Reed Warbler singing and lots of Chiffchaffs were also singing; again we had good views of two of them. A male and female Blackcap showed well if briefly and we also got our first Swallow of the year. With a total of only 28 species, I suppose this was a bit of a let down but, on the plus side, lots of them were year ticks and we were just so glad to be out and about getting some fresh air and exercise that we were happy with what we got.

We had made the very sound decision to book a table overlooking the marsh at the Harp Inn at Little Neston – it was really busy on a beautiful day and with lots of people still working from home, they could take the day off and enjoy the sun. The staff did very well to keep up with the large numbers of people but with the benches spaced apart enough we felt comfortable with the arrangements. I had my second Covid vaccination a week ago and felt better about being out in public. We didn’t get many birds there but almost every bird is a year tick so we got Marsh Harrier, Lesser Black-backed Gull and Teal there. Unbelievably I didn’t see a single Teal at Burton Mere Wetlands but, then again, the views were very limited.

What a treat it was to get away from home for the first time in six months – how we have missed out birding days out. Our tally at the end came to 35 species.

Bird Sightings Burton Mere Wetlands etc,. 22nd April 2021