Tatton Park : 27th January 2015

Tatton Park : 27th January 2015

The last birding group morning of January was to Tatton Park. We started off, as usual, at the Dog Wood entrance. There are dramatic changes there with what looks to be around one third of the trees in Dog Wood having been cut down. There was plenty of plant there but no one to ask what the works were about. It looks to be much more than routine thinning however. Thee felling had obviously disturbed the birds so there were virtually no birds on Tatton Mere – at least until the Melchet Mere end – and few in the woods themselves. A break in the felling did give us a chance to spot some Goldcrest and Treecreepers, however.

As we walked along the edge of the Mere there started to be a few Goldeneye and Tufted Duck but most of the (relatively) few birds on the water were on Melchet Mere away from the felling.

On Melchet Mere there were a few Pochard, Tufted Ducks and Goldeneye but the best spot was a male Ruddy Duck and two or three females. They disappeared around the back of the small promontory at the left edge of the mere so we had to walk around the perimeter of the mere to get better views of them. There were the usual high numbers of Great Crested Grebes and a single Little Grebe. We also saw a couple of Buzzards and a Kestrel.

When we returned in the direction of Dog Wood we went up to the high path back but instead of taking an angled walk up the incline, we walked straight up it to the corner of the fenced field. Looking at the field we could see a large flock of birds  coming and going from a stand of trees to the left of the fence. Closer examination showed them to be a mixed flock of Fieldfare, Redwing and Starling.  We walked into the stand of trees but this seemed to prompt the birds to move just one tree along and that is how it went with them keeping the same distance from us all the time.

We abandoned this pursuit and instead concentrated on the stand of trees in front of us where we were surprised to find large numbers of Treecreepers and Nuthatches. On one tree we could see two Treecreepers and in the tree next to it another. The more we looked aorund the more we could see. It was really quite surprising and a great end to our birding morning. As we walked back along the woods we could hear Woodpeckers drumming from several directions but I didn’t manage to see any and as we reached Dog Wood it again fell fairly quiet. The total count for the day was 36 species, making a monthly total of 82 species.

Bird Sightings : Tatton Park