Birding Group Day Out to RSPB Marshside and Mere Sands Woods 5th February 2013

Birding Group Day Out to RSPB Marshside and Mere Sands Woods 5th February 2013

Last week we deferred our visit to Marshide due to bad weather though surely it couldn’t have been much worse than we had this week with phenomenally strong winds and later on driving rain. It was all a bit severe but it was not without its rewards as we got some very good views of some nice birds.

We parked up in the lay-by and walked back down the road to the Sandgrounders Hide which is the reception area. There is a portaloo there but not much else there. The walk from the car park to this hide is about 200 m and there is another hide further down the same road about 550 m from the car park. There is also a walk along a footpath to the old sea wall and coast road. These make round trip walks of between 2 – 4 miles. With the weather the way it was we decided to stick to the two main hides. At the Sandgrounders Hide we could see a fairly large number of Wigeon and a few Teal and mixed in amongst them some Black-tailed Godwits and a few Curlew could also be seen at the far end of the fields. There were Tufted Ducks and a spattering of Redshanks and the odd Cormorants. But by far the two big sightings were a Water Rail that kept ducking in and out of a small channel just outside the hide and fantastic views of a Merlin – at first seen flying low across the fields and then, very conveniently, perching on a post in the open for long enough for everyone to get good views through the scopes.

We spent quite a lot of time there before making what was a long and blustery walk down to Nel’s Hide. As we approached the hide we could see a small group of Pink-Footed Geese in the field opposite and from the hide  could see a huge number of Tufted Ducks, several Pochard, lots of Lapwings and Gulls and hundreds of Golden Plovers that we had actually had distant views of from the other hide. Again there were Pochards and also Shovelers.

We stayed at this hide for about forty-five minutes before it was decided that we should drop down to Mere Sands Woods on the way back to Manchester. We hadn’t been to Mere Sands Woods before so it was very interesting to see it and although the rain prevented us from walking around the site our short view of the place meant that we were certainly going to return again. We really only spent a short period of time looking from the hide at the back of the reception area where some of our group had good views of a second Water Rail of the day. Unfortunately we were too late but we stayed around for a bit in case it showed again. All we really saw from this hide was some Reed Buntings and on the feeders outside reception there was a good mix of Nuthatch, Tree Sparrows, Bullfinches, Greenfinches and Dunnocks.

We were probably into our second hour of rain so we weren’t in the mood for yet another muddy walk in the rain in some woods so we headed off but next time we are at Martin Mere WWT we intend to make sure we drop in here again.

Bird Sightings : Marshside RSPB

Bird Sightings : Mere Sands Woods