Oct 02 2011

Day Out to Martin Mere WWT 2nd October 2011

Day Out to Martin Mere WWT 2nd October 2011

I had been looking for a new pair of binoculars and since I usually get my kit from the “In Focus” shop at Martin Mere WWT  I asked them to let me know when they had a pair of Swarovski 8.5 x 42 ELs in stock so that I could have another try of them before taking the plunge – having tried them before but being in need of further certainty before lashing out on an expensive bit of kit. So we headed up there and spent about an hour trying them out and – eventually – buying them. I needed a quick cup of tea to recover from the spending so we headed off to the new cafe for a refresher before setting off around the site. As usual, we headed down to the Ron Barker hide first.

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Sep 30 2011

Summary of September 2011

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.

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Sep 21 2011

Day Out To Pennington Flash 21st September 2011

Day Out To Pennington Flash 21st September 2011

We fancied a couple of hours out as the weather wasn’t too bad so we decided to go to Pennington Flash. Before we even got on the motorway in Chorlton we had great views of a Buzzard considering whether to land on a roadside tree. In the end it didn’t but we had good views of it swooping around so we considered this a good start to our birding day.

At Pennington Flash we parked up and had a quick look at what was on the Flash from there and encountered an Egyptian Goose looking a bit shabby in moult. From the car park we took the usual route we take with the birding group starting out at Hide 2 (The Horrocks Hide – the coldest and windiest) from which we could see large numbers of Cormorants (at least 20) Lapwings (at least 100) Mute Swans, Great Crested Grebe, Moorhen, Coots, Tufted Ducks, Shovelers and Mallards and lots of Black-headed and Herring and Great Black-backed Gulls. There were around 200 Canada Geese as well. Continue reading

Sep 20 2011

Scotland Visit Day 7 : WWT Caerlaverock : 14th September 2011

Scotland Visit Day 7 : WWT Caerlaverock : 14th September 2011

Although we were due to return to Manchester this day, we still managed to get a couple of hours in at Caerlaverock again before continuing our journey. We started off by doing the short circular of the Peter Scott trail and in the woods there we saw some small passerines and also heard a Chiffchaff still calling away.  A Robin and Tits were to be seen as were the resident Swallows, House Martins and House Sparrows. There are two hides there, one overlooking the Back Pond and the other overlooking the Back Field. From the hide overlooking the Back Field we saw a Buzzard perched on a post and another in a nearby tree. We had a quick look at the Whooper Pond but that was even quieter than the day before having mainly Mallard and the odd Tufted Duck and Shoveler.

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Sep 13 2011

Scotland Visit Day 6 : WWT Caerlaverock : 13th September 2011

Scotland Visit Day 6 : WWT Caerlaverock : 13th September 2011

On the Tuesday morning we drove from Stirling to Dumfries. The weather wasn’t brilliant but the worst of the storms seemed to pass in the night. We had planned on going over to the west coast and then driving down and then inland again to get to Dumfries but since this was where the bad weather was coming from we decided to take a more direct inland route. As it happens this afforded me at least (since Anne was driving) a good view of a Hooded Crow. I had seen it flying across the road and then wheeling round and coming back to land on a roadside post. I couldn’t decide what it was but suspected it was a Hooded Crow ; a suspicion confirmed as it flew off just as we drove past giving a clear view of its body and wings. This is a bit ironic since we had been looking out in particular for a Hooded Crow to add to our year list when we had been up north. In the end we had to wait until we were nearly at the borders to see one.

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Sep 12 2011

Scotland Visit Day 5 : Montrose Basin : 12th September 2011

Scotland Visit Day 5 : Montrose Basin : 12th September 2011

On Monday we had to return to Manchester but we still had a couple of interesting places to visit on our way back. Firstly we wanted to go to Montrose Basin Local Nature Reserve and then to break up the journey a bit we planned to stay the night in Dumfries so that we could fit in a visit to WWT Caerlaverock before making the final leg of our round trip. On our way to Montrose Basin from New Deer we encountered large flocks of Lapwing in the fields as well as lots of Swallows and House Martins. Montrose Basin itself is on the East coast and is tidal so best views are obtained relative to the high and low tides. The habitat consists of different zones ranging from mud banks, fresh water, sea water, brackish water, saltmarsh, reedbed, unimproved grassland and arable land. This means that an huge variety of birds can be present at any given time. They also have an artificial sand bank wall for Sand Martins which we saw the last time we visited but this time they had all gone by the time we got there. There are also a number of hides at other sites around the visitor centre that are well worth visiting but we didn’t really walk around, partly because we had so little time but also because the leftover weather from an American Hurricane Katia was due in so the weather conditions were deteriorating and we had to get to Stirling before the storms came. Fortunately, it is a really interesting visitor centre in itself with big windows overlooking feeders, lakes and the basin itself so there was lots to look at regardless.

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Sep 10 2011

Scotland Visit Day 3 & 4 : Forvie & The Ythan Estuary : 10th September 2011

Scotland Visit Day 3 & 4 : Forvie & The Ythan Estuary : 10th September 2011

We has been to various bits of the Ythan estuary on previous visits to Aberdeen-shire but we wanted to go to the parts where we might have a chance of seeing waders. We were also interested in going to the the Forvie visitor centre to find out a bit more about the dune system – parts of which are threatened by the development of a golf resort being built by Donald Trump a little further south on the other side of the mouth of the Ythan at Foveran- so we headed off to the Forvie NNR visitor centre near Collieston and had a look around there but it was so windy that we thought that that there would be little chance of any birds taking to the air from the dunes. On the other hand, we had seen a lot of waders on the estuary of the River Ythan as we drove from New Deer to Collieston ( the A975) so we thought that there would be better birding opportunities there. After having a look around the interesting visitor centre we decided to go back down the main road to the river.

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Sep 09 2011

Scotland Visit Day 2 : Loch of the Lowes : 9th September 2011

Scotland Visit Day 2 : Loch of the Lowes : 9th September 2011

We left Stirling on Friday with the intention of getting to Aberdeen by around 6pm. This gave us just enough time to drop in to the Loch of the Lowes Scottish Wildlife trust reserve on our way up. We didn’t have a great deal of time but we managed to fit in about an hour or 90 minutes. The Ospreys had gone, of course, but the last time we were there we had even less time so we wanted to revisit. It was a little quiet really but there is a good visitor centre with panoramic windows in front of feeders in the woods so there is always something to see and, as before, we saw a few Red Squirrels and we also saw a Greater spotted Woodpecker and a Jay.

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Sep 08 2011

Scotland Visit Day 1 : Lerrocks Farm : 8th September 2011

Scotland Visit Day 1 : Lerrocks Farm : 8th September 2011

The main reason that we had decided to stay in Stirling was to attend the Red Kite feeding at Lerrocks Farm in Doune, Stirlingshire. We had gone to RSPB Inversnaid, on the banks of Loch Lomond, in the morning but we had to leave earlier than we had hoped because, although it was not a great distance From Inversnaid to Doune, the roads were rough and narrow and very slow so we only just made it for the main event of our day which was the 2.30pm start for the 3pm feeding.

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Sep 08 2011

Scotland Visit Day 1 : RSPB Inversnaid : 8th September 2011

Scotland Visit Day 1 : RSPB Inversnaid : 8th September 2011

We had the chance to visit family up north so we decided to make a bit of a break of it by staying at some birding places on the way there and back. We drove from Manchester to Stirling on 7th September. We had a couple of things we wanted to do the following day and the first of these was to visit Inversnaid RSPB reserve which is on the edge of Loch Lomond in Stirlingshire. There is a big hotel there – the Inversnaid Hotel – but that it the only thing for miles around as it is very remote and the roads (paths really) that lead there are very narrow and slow to negotiate. From Stirling you head west into the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park and drive along the edge of Loch Ard and then Loch Chon. When you reach Loch Arklet the road gets very interesting and becomes more of a narrow path with lots of pot holes until it ends at Inversnaid.

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