Category: Uncategorized

High Tide at Hoylake 2nd March 2013

On the 2nd March we went up to Hoylake for the high tide as we had done earlier in the year in the middle of January. The tide was supposed to be quite high but it didn’t come in anywhere as near to the promenade as it had done on our first visit and also the visit was at the weekend so the place was even more full of dog walkers than before and they seemed to take great delight in walking all the way our to the edge of the water where most of the birds were roosting which got them flying off to somewhere quieter.

When we first arrived we got good views a, first just one but then later several more, Grey Plovers. For quite some time the closest views of the assemblage of birds were to be had on the far side of the lifeboat station where the tide comes in first. Eventually the tide drove them off the sand at that part of the beach and the water eventually covered all the sand beyond the station.

Continue reading

Summary of Our Birding on Mull, Iona and Lunga : July 2012

It may be that we had left it a little bit late in the year to visit Mull but we can hardly saw we were disappointed. We had seen sixty-two species including two of our target birds, Golden Eagle and White-tailed Eagle; we had heard three Corncrakes and had best ever views of Hen Harriers and Short-eared Owls. Neither of the last two were new to us but Manx Shearwater and Glaucous Gull were. We had added nine species to our year list for 2012 and generally defied the weather by having a fantastically sunny and pleasant week on the island. We had visited a great Puffinry on Lungs and seen FIngal’s Cave but the star of the show was Mull itself – a fantastically nature-rich island and one I hope to be able to return to very soon – perhaps even next year. Continue reading

Birding Group Visit to Wales 29th May 2012 : RSPB South Stack

By the time we had finished with the Fish Dock and Soldiers Point in Holyhead and got back on the South Stack Road it was already about 11am and about ten minutes after that we rolled into the car park at South Stack for a much needed cup of tea. The hotel we had stayed at in Holyhead (the Travel Inn) was primitive to say the least and did not do breakfast in any recognizable manner so we were glad of a cuppa. As soon as I looked towards the landward side of the rocks from the cafe I saw two Coughs hopping around the rocks – a perfect start to our day at South Stack. As soon as we were refreshed we set off down the track towards the observatory. From the cliff edge looking towards the lighthouse you could just make out with bins a few puffins floating on the water. Scouring the thousands of Common Guillemots it was possible to locate small numbers of Razorbills. They seemed to prefer to be less densely packed and their backs were much blacker than the dark grey-ish Guillemots. With the scope I even managed to find a couple of Fulmars on the cliff ledges. There were masses of Herring Gulls and at first we could hear Kittiwakes but could not locate the. In fact, as I later discovered, there is a hidden cove in the rock that the lighthouse stands on that they much prefer to anywhere else and this is where I eventually located a few but positive identification was only possible by looking at the leading edges of their wings as they landed in the crannies in the rock. Continue reading

Birding Group Visit to Wales 28th May 2012 : Cemlyn Bay

From Spinnies Abergowen we drove to Cemlyn Bay on Anglesey. On our way there we saw both Buzzard and Kestrel (and sometimes Buzzards hovering just like Kestrels – most unusual). We parked at the Bryn Aber end of the bay (which is sometimes cut off by the high tide) where we straight away saw six Ringed Plovers and a couple of Oystercatchers and Black-headed Gulls on the small lagoon. We walked along the shingle towards the middle of the bay and on the lagoon the first thing we saw was a Red-breasted Merganser. A we reached the middle of the larger of the islands we could see that there were many fewer birds than we expected and certainly fewer than we saw the last time we visited this site. Both islands had large numbers of Black-headed Gulls nesting but it was also clear that – by and large – the Sandwich Terns all nested on the larger of the two islands and the Common and Arctic Terns all nested predominantly on the smaller of the two islands. Continue reading

Visit to Moore Nature Reserve 27th March 2012

We had recently been to Moore Nature Reserve with the birding group and we had seen a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker in the woods near the Lapwing Lane end of Lapwing Lake (on the path that leads down to Canal Bed Hide. We wondered if we could get a second viewing of this bird but we also wanted to have a wander around the further reaches of the site that the birding group does not usually go to. Since it was a beautiful sunny day it seemed like a good day to do this. We parked up and immediately walked down to where we had seen the Woodpecker. There were some birders and photographers hanging around there but the bird had not been seen yet that day. We thought that we could drop back later to check again so we walked down to the the Canal Bed Hide. The numbers of water birds has dropped off a bit but there were lots of Tufted Ducks and Gulls, Swans and Mallards. We walked back up the path and turned left where we had seen the Woodpecker and walked round that little copse turning left again at Lapwing Lane and dropping in at the  Feeding Station Hide. There were Tits, Reed Buntings and Chaffinches –  few Mallard and lots of Squirrels ! Otherwise it was quite quiet.

Continue reading

Summary of October 2011

We went to Martin Mere on the 2nd where I bought a new pair of binoculars and gave them their first run out. The birding group got going properly this month so we went to Marbury Country Park on 4th and Pennington Flash on the 11th and Leighton Moss on the 18th and Inner Marsh Farm on 31st. Inner Marsh Farm is now expanded with the addition of three new hides and the opening up of other ponds. The whole area is now called Burton Mere Wetland. See below for more details of this first visit to the new RSPB site.  On the 24th no one else could attend the weekly birding group outing due to various commitments. We had planned to go to Wigan Flashes which had been postponed previously but since there was only myself and Anne and Mike available we decided to go instead to Martin Mere for our first real sight of the Whooper Swans and the Pink-footed Geese in large numbers.It was a fine day and we did a comprehensive tour of the site with around 31 species spotted and large numbers of some of them as the migrants start to collect for the winter.

Continue reading

Summary of September 2011

The highlight of September was undoubtedly our holiday in Scotland which took in visits to RSPB Inversnaid, Lerrocks Farm in Doune, Stirlingshire, the SWT site at Loch of the Lowes, Forvie and the Ythan estuary, Montrose Basin and Caerlaverock WWT all in the space of around a week. We saw over 50 species including some nice sightings of Buzzards, Kestrels and Red Kites as well as a Hooded Crow – a Scottish specialty.  We had a lot of domestic catching up to do on our return so, apart from one visit to Pennington Flash on 21st September where we saw a Green Sandpiper, we did not do much local birding.

Continue reading