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.
The Blue, Great and Coal Tits have returned and there is a Dunnock and a Robin as a regular feature. On 7th December we saw the first Blackcap of the winter and it reappeared from time to time. Mistle Thrushes are more commonly seen in the trees around and in particular protecting the tree in Russ and Julie’s garden. By the end of the month Greenfinches seen less regularly. The weather for Christmas was very good with warm temperatures. between Christmas and New Year a few strong winds and some rain.
Birding Group
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.
Local Walks and Days Out
I went for a walk around Sale Water Park area on the 12th and amongst other birds I saw Goosander, Kingfisher and Bullfinches. On 22nd we went for a long walk around Chorlton Water Park and then crossed Bailey Bridge to Kenworthy Woods where we had a brief walk and then went along the south side of the River Mersey to Jackson’s Boat. We crossed at Jackson’s Bridge and walked back along the north side returning to our starting point at Chorlton Water Park. Amongst other things we saw a Greater-spotted Woodpecker in the woods and Goldeneye on the Mersey. The day was remarkable for the warm temperature and it was a fine sunny day. It was hard to believe that it was nearly Christmas and the previous year at this time we had all been snowbound !
On the 13th we went to Martin Mere WWT just to get one last visit in before the new year. The weather reports had been so pessimistic that a lot of people had obviously stayed at home but – luckily for us – it turned out not to be as bad as anticipated and it gave us our first sightings of a Grey Phalarope !