February 2017 Summary

February 2017 Summary
UK Species Year List to February : 100
Total UK Species in February : 73
New “Year Ticks” in February : 15
New “Life Ticks” in February : 0

February was opened by a visit to Chorlton Water Park and Kenworthy Woods on the 3rd. I got a couple of year ticks in the shape of Grey Wagtial and Rose-ringed Parakeet but the species list for the day was rather good and included Goldcrest and Redwing.

A day out in on the 7th to North Wales to try for Snow Buntings and Hawfiches proved to be very succesful and I even managed to get some good photographs of the Snow Buntings, though , of course, the Hawfinch were a lot less accomodating.

A spell of flu put me out of action for a good part of February so it wasn’t until the 25th that I got out again with a visit to Connah’s Quay and Burton Mere Wetlands where, at the former, we were successful with the Twite but it seemed like the Bewick Swans had moved on from Shotwick Fields (in fact a later report suggested that at least a few were atill around).

At Burton Mere Wetlands  we got a nice range of birds including “year ticks” of Avocet, Ruff, Marsh Harrier and Great White Egret. The storm damage was quite remarkable and it will take them a long time to repair it all.

The last outing of the month was to Hoylake, Parkgate, Neston and Burton Mere Wetlands on the 28th February for a high tide. The heavy snow that was falling as we set off disappeared by the time we got to the Wirral and it turned out to be a fine day with some good birding. At Hoylake, Bar-tailed Godwit, strel, Brent Geese and Knot were all good year ticks and at  Parkgate we even got a small flock of Waxwings.  We got a few more birds at Burton but the weather was getting to be very wet so we called it a day.