Jan 31 2012

Birding Group Day Out to Martin Mere WWT 31st January 2012

Birding Group Day Out to Martin Mere WWT 31st January 2012

The last day of the month was due to be a visit to Martin Mere and Mere Sands Woods but, in the end, it was decided that there was so much to see at Martin Mere that we would stay there all day rather than leave early to go to the nearby Mere Sands Woods. This decision was made quite early as we had, from the start, started to see some good sighting, especially of raptors.

We started off by going to the Ron Barker hide where we saw three Marsh Harriers.  Although the Pink-footed Geese were mainly all out in the fields for the day, there were a few there and indeed one was grazing just in front of the hide so we got good close views. We also saw around 40 Ruff mixed in with the Lapwing and the very large numbers of Wigeon. Many of the smaller bodies of water were  largely frozen over and as the day went on it got colder still.

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Jan 24 2012

Birding Group Visit to Pennington Flash 24th January 2012

Birding Group Visit to Pennington Flash 24th January 2012

Today the birding group was due to go to Redesmere but a poor weather forecast put a lot of people off given that there is no cover there, so instead we followed the usual standby plan which was to go to Pennington Flash where there are at least a few hides to, well, hide in ! Fortunately there are plenty of birds there for whom the weather is just water off a duck’s back. So we still had some good sightings despite the weather. There were even some songbirds around

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Jan 17 2012

Birding Group Visit to Tatton Park 17th January 2012

Birding Group Visit to Tatton Park 17th January 2012

Our morning trip to Tatton Park was made more pleasant by it being a cold, bright, crisp winter morning. We parked up as usual in the lay-by on Mobberley Road and walked down Mallard Close and over the railway bridge to the south entrance. We walked through Dog Wood where we saw Goldcrests, a Nuthatch and Long-tailed Tits. The wood was full of Blue and Great Tit calls as well. We turned down the path to the left that runs near the edge of Tatton Mere and stopped there to see what was on the water.

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Jan 11 2012

New Birding Group Schedule

Due to issues concerning the correct dates for high tides, the original schedule for this session has changed to the following :

New Birding Group Schedule

Date Venue
Jan 17th Tatton Park
Jan 24th Redesmere
Jan 31st Martin Mere and Meresands Wood day trip
Feb 7th Neumann’s Flash
Feb 16th Hilbre Island (weather permitting)
Feb 21st Sandbach Flashes
Feb 28th Bramhall
March 6th Wigan Flashes
March 13th Frodsham Marshes (weather permitting)
March 20th Moore
March 26th Burton and Inner Marsh Farm
April 3rd Marbury CP (pub lunch and summer programme setting)

Jan 10 2012

Birding Group Visit to Pennington Flash 10th January 2012

Birding Group Visit to Pennington Flash 10th January 2012

This was the first day of the new birding group term and it started with a regular of the group – Pennington Flash. Unusually for the time of year, the weather was really quite mild and even the usual wind tunnel effect in “Horrock’s hide” was ameliorated by the mild weather ; last year at this time it was a different story. The birding was good all round with sightings of Goldeneye (male female and juvenile) and also Goosander and,more usually, Tufted Duck. At the Tom Edmonson hide there were lots of Teal but, particularly pleasing, there were three (at least) Snipe sitting on the left hand bank just behind the reeds.

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Dec 31 2011

Summary December 2011

Summary December 2011

Garden

December saw the weather turn a little colder and much wetter after a very mild November. With the rain and cold came the birds and our garden has started to look more familiar. Each day there are at least a couple of dozen Goldfinches at a time on the feeders; two Greenfinches are reasonably common.

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Dec 22 2011

Sale Water Park and Kenworthy Woods 22nd December 2011

Sale Water Park and Kenworthy Woods 22nd December 2011

On 22nd we went to Chorlton Water Park where we parked up and then went for a walk.  It was a beautiful winter day with lots of sun and unusually mild considering it was nearly Christmas – not at all like last year ! We started out going counter-closkwise to keep the low sun out of our eyes. The usual mixture of Black-headed Gulls and Canada Geese dominated though there were a couple of Cormorants flying overhead and a Wigeon on the water. We decided that we would take the opportunity to go to Kenworthy Woods Continue reading

Dec 13 2011

Day Out to Martin Mere WWT 13th December 2011

Day Out to Martin Mere WWT 13th December 2011

The birding group usually occupies our Tuesdays but last week was the last group-day before Christmas so we were keen to get out for a day birding before the demands of Christmas got too pressing and before the bad weather set in. We fancied going up to Martin Mere WWT – a regular haunt of ours but the television weather forecasts were pretty ominous with snow and storms predicted. However, Monday had been quite nice in Manchester despite forecasts so we weren’t convinced. A quick look on the internet for a more detailed forecast indicated that it might be worth the risk so we decided to wait until morning and look out the window before deciding – the scientific approach. As it happened the morning was cold but sunny so we set off and we were glad that we did because we saw some awesome bird behavior as well as some fine birds and a life first for us.

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Dec 12 2011

Sale Water Park 12th December 2011

Sale Water Park 12th December 2011

In a break in the patch of wet weather we have had recently I went for a walk in Chorlton – along the burn, down to the Mersey, over the bridge and through Sale Water Park and returning to Chorlton Green via Jackson’s Bridge. Normally this would be a fairly mundane walk with no great expectation of seeing anything out of the ordinary. Perhaps it was the cold weather but it turned out to be much more interesting than usual and particularly enjoyable as a result of the dog walkers and cyclists and joggers being put off by the cold.

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Dec 06 2011

Bird Group Meeting at Dunham Massey Park 6 Dec 2011

Bird Group Meeting at Dunham Massey Park 6 Dec 2011

On 6th December we all met up at Dunham Massey but the weather was pretty poor so we only went for a short walk after lunch there. The lunch was the birding group’s end of term meeting to plan for the next term where a rough schedule was made up as follows :

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