Author's posts
Mar 26 2019
Birding Group visit to Pennington Flash 26th March 2019
The last birding group day of the month was supposed to be to Brockholes but it turned out not to be open yet, according to one of our group, so we opted for Pennington Flash again. It was a nice enough day but windy in every hide. Nothing special was seen.
Mar 19 2019
Birding Group visit to Flint and Burton Mere Wetlands 19th March 2019
I missed the birding group visit to Neumann’s Flash on the 12th March due to bad weather but I did manage to get to the one on the 19th to Flint. Unfortunately there wasn’t a lot there and we had to wait a couple of hours for the tide to recede and a few, common, waders to appear. We eventually decided to go on to Burton Mere Wetlands.
Mar 05 2019
Birding Group Visit to Marshside and Martin Mere – 5th March 2019
The first birding group outing of March was to Marshside and it was windy as ever and only moderately interesting. We had dome by about noon so we decided to go to Martin Mere which was a bit more interesting and gave us a good range of species even though there was nothing especially exciting. At Mrshide and Martin MEre we got our first Ruff of the year and at Martin Mere we also got our first Whooper Swans of the year. That was about it though.
Feb 28 2019
February 2019 : Monthly Summary
February 2019 : Summary
UK Species Year List to February : 103
Total UK Species in February : 100
New “Year Ticks” in February : 31
New “Life Ticks” in February : 1
Feb 26 2019
Birding Group Sandbach Flashes 26th February 2019
We had a nice morning out on a beautiful sunny day – unbelievable for February but we have had a few recently. We had a year tick Green Sandpiper and Tree Sparrow and Common Snipe were more regular ticks, but still first for the year. A nice group of male and female Goosanders were colourful additions to the usual ducks (plenty of Wigeon) and there were even a few Black-tailed Godwits. Not a fantastic collection of birds – but still thirty-six species – but a nice morning out.
Feb 22 2019
Overnight Stay at Parkgate for High Tide on the Wirral 21-22 February 2019
Short-eared Owl, Parkgate
We have been planning an overnight visit to Parkgate so we could get the chance to see the birds of prey coming into the overnight roost at Neston. WIth a high tide of 10.12 metres at 12:20pm we thought that if we stayed over we could get two high tides at Parkgate and the evening roost so this is what we decided to do, staying at the Ship Hotel overnight.
Feb 19 2019
Birding Group visit to Hoylake, New Bighton and Parkgate : 19th February 2019
The birding group visit for 19th February was to Hoylake and New Brighton for the high-ish tide of 9.6 metres at 10:48pm but this left us time to add on a visit to Parkgate after those two places and this gave us probably the best one hour of raptor watching we have ever had.
Feb 14 2019
Blythe’s Reed Warbler – Hope Carr Nature Reserve, 14th February 2019
We saw on Birdguides that the Blythe’s Reed Warbler thathas been around at Hope Carr Nature Reserve had been showing early in the day on the perimiter fence at the sewage works at the end of Hope Carr Terrace. It has been around for a while and we tried to see it the previous Tuesday when the birding group dropped in there after the visit to Pennington Flash. We didn’t have any luck then but we thought we could get there early enough to stand a chance. It had been seen there around 9:30am and we got there about an hour later.
Feb 12 2019
Connah’s Quay, Shotwick, Burton and Parkgate 12th February 2019
We were supposed to go to Frodsham with the birding group on the 12th but they decided they were going to park on the motorway bridge and walk from there. Several people opted out of this for their own reasons but I just thought that there wasn’t much likelihood of seeing anything much there that could not be seen more easily elsewhere, so we decided to go up to the Wirral instead and I think that our decision was vindicated with forty-five species sighted including Short-eared Owl and Hen Harrier.
Feb 11 2019
Sale Water Park 11th February 2019
In a two hour walk around Sale Water Park (4 miles in 2 hours !!) I managed to encounter three professional dog walkers with between 6 and 8 dogs each and in total around 60-70 dogs during that 2 hour period; two of these jumped up on me and the second of these led to a slight altercation with the owner who explained the dogs behaviour with “it’s a dog!!” – as if this explained everything. She was genuinely amazed that anyone would be less that charmed by her fucking Jack Russell and its shitty paws.
Bird-wise, though it was pretty good with a total of twenty-nine species seen including year tick Jay, Great Crested Grebe, Little Grebe and Ring-necked Parakeet.
A good walk with plenty of bird song and plenty of species spoiled by the epidemic of dogs.
Bird Sightings Sale Water Park 11th February 2019
| Mute Swan | 24 |
| Gadwall | 4 |
| Mallard | 12 |
| Northern Shoveler | 8 |
| Common Merganser | 1 |
| Little Grebe | 3 |
| Great Crested Grebe | 1 |
| Great Cormorant | 1 |
| Grey Heron | 6 |
| Common Buzzard | 1 |
| Common Moorhen | 2 |
| Common Coot | 10 |
| Black-headed Gull | 30 |
| Lesser Black-backed Gull | 2 |
| Common Kestrel | 1 |
| Rose-ringed Parakeet | 6 |
| Eurasian Jay | 1 |
| Eurasian Jackdaw | 40 |
| Carrion Crow | 6 |
| Coal Tit | 6 |
| Great Tit | 8 |
| Eurasian Blue Tit | 6 |
| Long-tailed Tit | 12 |
| Eurasian Nuthatch | 3 |
| Eurasian Treecreeper | 1 |
| European Robin | 3 |
| Eurasian Blackbird | 4 |
| Redwing | 1 |
| Song Thrush | 2 |