WWT Martin Mere 9 Oct 2024
Our birding day started from the breakfast room at The Mill at Conder Green where we stayed overnight after our visit the previous day to Leighton Moss with the birding group. They had all returned home, but we stayed over at this hotel by the canal. We had a look at the rather backwater canal and found a Grey Heron posing on a gate near the lock and a family of Mute Swans. The next morning, however, as we had breakfast, I looked out the window and saw a flash of electric blue – a Kingfisher. I had just seen the flash as it shot down to the water, but it came right back up with a fish in its bill and proceeded to what it on the bank of the canal. A Grey Wagtail also turned up and the Heron and Swans were all back too. A nice introduction to a good day of birding that saw us get a couple of year ticks.
I had read that there were a few first arrival Whooper Swans, come Cattle Egrets and a Snow Goose to find – if we were lucky. As it happens, we had to become members again as I had let our membership lapse in a fit of pique over what I considered to be an above-inflation increase in the membership fees. I decided to delay our renewal until the next time we intended to actually visit and this meant that I saved almost a years’ worth of membership fees. I do regard the cost as a charitable donation, but it just annoys me the way the bureaucracy does not consider how hard it is to keep up with inflation. Rather than cutting back on anything, they just up the rates and a bit and then tell you that you can pay by monthly instalments instead thus missing the point entirely. Anyway we rejoined.
We started off at the new hide and that was pretty quiet though we did get the expected range of ducks etc. but the best birding was at the Ron Barker hide. As sometimes happens, as we were entering the hide two people said that we had just missed good views of a Bittern. I hate when that happens! This was confirmed by two chaps inside the hide. We felt that we had probably missed the chance, but we looked hard for it anyway and in doing so came across three Whooper Swans way off in a field on the right of the hide. In the nearer field but still to the right were a small herd of cattle and sixteen Cattle Egrets perched around and on them! We also started to see good numbers of Pink-footed Geese dropping in.
We kept looking for birds in the sky and were finally rewarded when the Bittern lifted up out of the reeds and started flying; I even managed to get my scope on it before it again disappeared into the reed bed. So we had seen two of our target birds.
We walked around the rest of the hides getting a few Marsh Harriers, a Buzzard and a Great Egret on our way round. We stopped in at the Janet Keir hide and got a Great Spotted Woodpecker there but when we got to the United Utilities hide, where we hoped to see the Snow Goose from, it was closed for repairs. I suppose we should have looked more closely at the notice boards.
We walked back along the long path from there and dropped in for one last look from the Discovery hide – and there was our Snow Goose! That made it a full house for our target birds and that was the end to a good days birding and an end to our two-day birding break where we had seen Bearded Tit, Bittern, Cattle Egret, Kingfisher and Snow Goose – not too shabby.
Bird Sightings : The Mill at Conder Green 9 Oct 2024
| Species | No |
|---|---|
| Grey Heron | 1 |
| Grey Wagtail | 1 |
| Kingfisher | 1 |
| Mallard | 10 |
| Mute Swan | 8 |
| Robin | 1 |
| Starling | 12 |
Bird Sightings : WWT Martin Mere 9 Oct 2024
| Species | No |
|---|---|
| Bittern | 1 |
| Black-headed Gull | 40 |
| Blackbird | 2 |
| Blue Tit | 6 |
| Buzzard | 1 |
| Canada Goose | 4 |
| Carrion Crow | 10 |
| Cattle Egret | 16 |
| Cetti's Warbler | 2 |
| Chaffinch | 2 |
| Coot | 60 |
| Cormorant | 12 |
| Goldfinch | 8 |
| Great Spotted Woodpecker | 1 |
| Great Tit | 6 |
| Great White Egret | 1 |
| Grey Heron | 1 |
| Greylag Goose | 20 |
| Jackdaw | 20 |
| Magpie | 4 |
| Marsh Harrier | 3 |
| Moorhen | 6 |
| Pheasant | 1 |
| Pink-footed Goose | 80 |
| Pintail | 1 |
| Pochard | 20 |
| Robin | 2 |
| Rock Dove / Feral Pigeon | 4 |
| Snow Goose | 1 |
| Teal | 50 |
| Whooper Swan | 3 |
| Wigeon | 8 |