Author's posts
Oct 04 2016
Birding Group : Burton Mere Wetlands : 4th October 2016
Birding Group : Burton Mere Wetlands : 4th October 2016
The second birding group outing f the sutumn term was to Burton Mere Wetlands. The best birds were again the Black Swans and Little Stints, the latter both from the reception hide and Inner Marsh Farm. As with our previous visit a few days before there were lots of Snipe showing very well.
Oct 01 2016
High Tide at Hoylake, Riverbank Road and Burton Mere Wetlands : 1st October 2016
High Tide at Hoylake, Riverbank Road and Burton Mere Wetlands : 1st October 2016
The weekend of the 1st and 2nd of October was “Wirral Wader Festival” with lots of events at Thurstaston, Hoylake and Red Rocks etc. With a “low” high tide, only 9.2 metres, at 12.30pm we thought that Hoylake was probably the best chance of a bit of a show. As it happened we did get a nice spread of birds despite the water not coming too far in.
Sep 30 2016
Summary September 2016
Summary September 2016
Species this month = 60
New Species added to 2016 Year List in September= 1
Little Stint at Inner Marsh Farm on 8th September 2016
New UK Life List Birds In June = 0
Running Total for the 2016 UK So Far = 185
Sep 27 2016
Birding Group : Pennington Flash : 27th September 2016
Birding Group : Pennington Flash : 27th September 2016
The first day of the birding group’s autumn season started with a visit to Pennington Flashes on quite a pleasant morning – eventually. There had been very large numbers of Coots here recently but most of those seem to have moved on. There was a reasonble showing of a few Snipe and a Green Sandpiper but nothing mich beyond that. However, as usual, there was afair number of species on the site so the count on the day was reasonable.
Sep 08 2016
Connah’s Quay and Burton Mere Wetlands 8th September 2016
Connah’s Quay and Burton Mere Wetlands 8th September 2016
A weather forecast indicating poor weather getting better by mid-morning saw us set off for a visit to Connah’s Quay, a reserve we have not been to in a while, and Burton Mere Wetlands. It is getting to the time when we can expect to see some interesting waders and we weren’t disappointed in that department.
Aug 31 2016
Monthly Summary August 2016
Summary August 2016
Species this month = 88
New Species added to 2016 Year List in August= 5
Green Sandpiper (WWT Slimbridge) on 20th, Curlew Sandpiper (WWT Slimbridge) on 21st, Litle Owl (Studland Bay) on 27th, Sparrowhawk (at WWT Steart Marshes) on 28th, Glossy Ibis (Shapwick Heath) on 30th.
New UK Life List Birds In August = 0
Running Total for the 2016 UK So Far = 184
Aug 31 2016
WWT Slimbridge 31st August 2016
WWT Slimbridge 31st August 2016
We had a long drive ahead of us up to Manchester and it turned out to be bir arduous and our worst trtaffic of the holiday despite most of it being over a bank holiday and our return day being a normal day. Still we thought we had time for a quick couple of hours at Slimbridge before heading home. Whilst we did not see anything particularly wonderful, a quick vivit gave us a good number of waders including Green and Common Sandpipers, Ruff and Snipe.
Aug 30 2016
WWT Slimbridge 30th August 2016
WWT Slimbridge 30th August 2016
We arrived from Shapwick Heath at Slimbridge about ten minutes to two o’clock and we rushed to the reception to see if they were running a Range Rover tour of the site. We had tried twice before on this holiday but wet ground had meant that the trailey they mount behind the Land Rover to carry the passengers was getting bogged down. To our great surprise we got there just in time to get the last two seats for the day. We rushed down a quick sandwich and after a bit a member of staff and a volunteer came to pick us up.