Birding Group Visit to Tatton Park 22nd January 2012

Birding Group Visit to Tatton Park 22nd January 2012

As it was in January of last year, it was a lovely bright but cold day. The difference this year was that there was lots of snow around and the meres were iced over for a significant part of their area.

. We parked up as usual in the lay-by on Mobberley Road and walked down Mallard Close and over the railway bridge to the south entrance. We walked through Dog Wood where we saw both male and female Great Spotted Woodpeckers, the male drumming loudly and resounding throughout the woods. There were Chaffinches, Robins, Blackbirds and Jackdaws aplenty.As we passed through the woods we also saw a Nuthatch and a small group of Siskins, the latter a first for the year. There were, obviously, also a lot of Blue and Great Tits.

The part of the Mere was frozen over  and just a few Black-headed Gulls were standing on the ice but in the open water there were Mute Swans, Coots, Tufted Ducks and smaller numbers of Pochard and Goldeneye. A couple of Great-crested Grebes were also present. On the far bank was a Grey Heron and two more in the trees above. There were, of course, the usual Mallards.

As we continued through the woods we also saw a Jay and a Wren. We came out of Dog Wood and walked through the snow up to the Allen Hide in Crow Wood that overlooks Melchette Mere. From inside the hide we could see Tits, Nuthatches and Coal Tits on the feeders and on the mere itself we could see half a dozen Cormorants and more Tufted Ducks and Mute Swans.

We were just turning back to take the high road back to the cat when one of our group spotted a Green Woodpecker in the stand of five trees just over the water. It was a long way away but I had time to briefly get the scope on the bird – a bird which had eluded us for all of 2012 and which we now had an early “year tick” on. It didn’t stay around for long though and soon dropped out of view.

Some of the group also saw Buzzard and Kestrel but we ended up quite dispersed as we had a good turnout of around 10 people.

We headed back to the cars and didn’t really see anything new but we were happy enough and this time of year at Tatton Park is always interesting. We sere sorry not to have seen a Treecreeper, though, and we had hoped to see a pair of Mandarin Ducks like we had in January of 2012 but the Green Woodpecker and Siskins made up for that.

Bird Sightings : Tatton Park