We moved on from Somerset to visit friends at Bristol. This gave us the chance to visit WWT Steart Marshes, though it turned out to be a freezing day and quite wet.It was raining when we arrived at the car park so we drove further up the road to the other small car park at the part of the reserve that overlooks Bridgewater Bay. We took a bit of a walk out ther but it was very muddy, windy and a bit wet. There were no birds on the bay except perhaps a remote Shelduck but there were lots of Skylarks which was nice.
Apr 23 2018
RSPB Ham Wall and Shapwick Heath NNR 23d April 2018 23d April 2018
We travelled from Oxfordshire to Somerset to visit friends and this gave us a whole day to check out both RSPB Ham Wall and also the neighbouring Shapwick Heath. It was a lot colder than we expected and it felt more like a winter day than a spring day. Be that as it may, we were determined to see what we could while we could stand it.
Apr 20 2018
RSPB Otmoor 20th April 2018
We had a brief trip down south to visit friends and family and our first stop was near Oxford so this gave us the chance to go to RSPB Otmoor reserve. It was a fine, dry day and quite warm so we had high hopes of perhaps getting Turtle Doves and Lesser Whitethroats. We saw neither species – presumably because it is a little early in the year. We did get a number of year ticks, though.
Apr 17 2018
Birding Group Neumann’s Flash 18th April 2018
The first day on the new birding group “term” saw us go to Neumann’s Flash on a day that threatened rain but we managed to “duck” it nicely. Although there weren’t impressive numbers of birds, we got some nice spring arrivals including my first Sand AMrtin of the year.
Apr 06 2018
Wirral on a Windy Day 6th April 2018
After a sunny day we were hopeful of a another one the following day when we decided to go up to the Wirral and visit some of the sites we rarely visit. Thes first stop was Leosowe Lighthouse but it was so windy and there tide was so far out that we soon abandoned that instead moving on to Meols Parade.
Mar 30 2018
March 2018: Summary
March 2018: Summary
UK Species Year List to March: 98
Total UK Species in March: 49
New “Year Ticks” in March: 6
New “Life Ticks” in March: 0
Mar 30 2018
Burton Mere Wetlands and Neston Old Quay 30 March 2018
We managed to fit in a visit to Burton Mere Wetlands on the last day of the month and it managed to keep dry giving us a chance to get around most of the site. We were immediately rewarded with two Mediterranean Gulls on the main scrape which was a good year tick. The number of Avocets on site was impressive and we were told that the maximum count had been 129 !
Mar 30 2018
Moore Nature Reserve 30 March 2018
Most of our March had been filled with our holiday in America but we managed to get back into the birding group Tuesdays for the last date of the term which was to Moore Nature Reserve. We ran in to the warden in the car park and she toild us theat three Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers had been seen close to the usual place for them the previous day. We didn’t have any luck finding them, however, despite spending a long time looking. Perhaps they were hiding because it was raining quite heavily most of the time we were there.