WWT Martin Mere : 8th December 2015
The last birding group day of the term was to WWT Martin Mere where we hoped – in vain – to see either the Greenland White-fronted Geese or the Green-winged Teal that had been reported. We didn’t see either of these species but we had a nice enough day before the rain came hammering down. The most interesting thing about our visit was actually the changes made on site with a lot of landscaping and the creation of a new hide.
We started out for the Ron Barker Hide but could not help but see the brand new Discovery Hide. We went up to Ron Barker first just to see if we could get either of our target species but we soon tired of scanning the huge numbers of Teal looking for the one bird. We did get views of a distant Buzzard and some Pink-footed Geese nearer to the hide.
We returned via the Raines Observatory where there were a lot of Whoopers feeding on the potato mound and then went on to see the Discovery Hide. My first impression was that this is yet another heated glass-enclosed visitor attraction and I hope that it is not meant to be a replacement for the Swanlink Hide that is to be demolished this winter. It is ok as far as it goes and some of it is indoors/outdoors and there are some opening windows but it all smacks of turning Martin Mere into a school visitor centre cum nursery – a development that has been going on for some time now. If it is a replacement for Swanlink I will be disgusted.
Moving on to the United Utilities Hide was a great surprise; what has been just fields before has been dug out to creat large bodies of water. I am not sure what they intend to attract there but it will be interesting to see what moves in. We did get extremely close views of a Marsh Harrier that just flapped its way past us at hide eye-level before disappearing off to the left. A little while later we were all surprised to see that a Marsh Harrier had actually landed about 100 feet from the hide and was just preening away! Another nice sight was a mixed group of Black-headed Gulls, Lapwing and Ruff that were all feeding in a damp patch of the field in front of us. They kept getting up and then returning which offered us a good chance at practicing detecting Ruff in a mixed flock in flight.
We dropped in at the Janet Keir Hide on the way back but that was very quiet and by the time we got back to Swanlink it was raining torrentially. This seemed like out cue to get back to Manchester so we headed off.
Bird Sightings : Martin Mere : Ron Barker Hide
| Species |
Count |
| Pink-footed Goose |
100 |
| Greylag Goose |
100 |
| Whooper Swan |
60 |
| Common Shelduck |
8 |
| Eurasian Wigeon |
500 |
| Northern Shoveler |
6 |
| Common Teal |
600 |
Bird Sightings : Martin Mere : Raines Observatory
| Species |
Count |
| Pink-footed Goose |
30 |
| Whooper Swan |
100 |
| Mallard |
100 |
| Common Moorhen |
8 |
| Common Coot |
10 |
| Northern Lapwing |
80 |
| Rock Dove |
1 |
Bird Sightings : Martin Mere : Discovery Hide
| Species |
Count |
| Mute Swan |
8 |
| Whooper Swan |
100 |
| Common Shelduck |
4 |
| Eurasian Wigeon |
300 |
| Mallard |
100 |
| Northern Pintail |
20 |
| Common Eider (Eurasian) |
10 |
| Northern Lapwing |
100 |
Bird Sightings : Martin Mere : Swanlink Hide
| Species |
Count |
| Whooper Swan |
150 |
| Eurasian Wigeon |
300 |
| Mallard |
150 |
| Northern Pintail |
20 |
| Common Teal |
2000 |
| Great Cormorant |
20 |
| Grey Heron |
1 |
| Eurasian Marsh Harrier |
2 |
| Northern Lapwing |
100 |
| Ruff |
12 |
| Common Starling |
100 |
Bird Sightings : Martin Mere : United Utilities Hide
| Species |
Count |
| Canada Goose |
200 |
| Whooper Swan |
200 |
| Eurasian Wigeon |
200 |
| Common Teal |
200 |
| Great Cormorant |
20 |
| Eurasian Marsh Harrier |
2 |
| Northern Lapwing |
200 |
| Ruff |
15 |
| Black-headed Gull |
200 |
Bird Sightings : Martin Mere : Janet Keir Hide
| Species |
Count |
| Mallard |
4 |
| Common Pheasant |
2 |
| Common Moorhen |
2 |
| Great Tit |
6 |
| Eurasian Blue Tit |
10 |
| European Robin |
1 |
| Reed Bunting |
2 |
| Common Chaffinch |
20 |
| European Goldfinch |
8 |
